


Adventures of Relics and Flames

by Sixes_and_Sevens



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: ALL ABOARD THE ANGST TRAIN, And then I hit her..., Bisexual Character, Black Character(s), Black female original character, Canon-Typical Violence, Droid liberation, Eventual Smut, Exploration of the force, F/F, L3-37 (mentioned), Lesbians in Space, Slow Burn, Spa Treatments, The Force, Zabraks (Star Wars), imaginary martial arts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28870980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixes_and_Sevens/pseuds/Sixes_and_Sevens
Summary: Arsjami, scholar and professor by day and “Voice of The Rebellion” on the Holonet by night needs some downtime, and a pilot to help ferry her around to pick up some important artifacts, left in a hurry. She’s paired up with Dakatar, the Zabrak who fascinates her terribly, who can get her in and out of harm’s way without the Empire noticing. Hopefully.A Star Wars fic with original female characters set before and during the Original Trilogy. A dark skinned Black human woman who loves to study cultures and languages and a Zabrak as surprising as she is unique. Come for the slow burn tale of queer women in space, stay for a story about consent, the consequences and ruin that comes from fascist empires, and two women figuring out what personal responsibility means in a galaxy as wide you can imagine.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Meeting and Yearning

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic of any length and damn there's a lot of words in here.  
> Meet my two favorite imaginary people and join them on an old-fashioned odd-couple quest with only their wits about them. 
> 
> No warnings or notes to start.  
> Please enjoy.  
> Let's go.

“Have you ever met a Zabrak? They’re known for being stubborn.”

I made my best academic noise. “I know that is their reputation, but I prefer not to traffic in stereotypes, Set5.”

The droid, a P4T model in red and blue, turned it’s head to look at me while continuing to walk forward as we rounded to the double doors of the conference room. 

“Certainly, Professor. I find that humans like you need to be warned of these inter-cultural details. I believe you will find some stereotypes exist for a reason.”

In the antechamber, I paused to straighten the collar of my tunic. It was an understated pale purple, knee length, over dark purple leggings, tucked into regulation boots. I had my university pin on my lapel. I hoped it made me look official. I’d just cut my hair the night before. The tight coils were well oiled and black against my scalp. I pulled the longer curls just in front of my ears so they framed my rounded brown face and highlighted my wide smile. Which I then practiced, just for good measure. I adjusted my nose cuff and matching ear cuffs, to make sure they were all pointing correctly. Closing my eyes, I centered myself and reached out, focusing on the warm glow of living energy just beyond the door. This was an important conversation and I wanted all of my senses, especially my sixth one, my Gift, ready to go. I said a prayer to The Mother and The Force, then stepped to the conference room door.

The doors whooshed open, admitting us. A Zabrak female stood next to the head of the table. She was a similar shade of brown as I, but was taller by a head or more. Her face was marked symmetrically with the strong black lines of a tattoo, pointing at the corners of her mouth, up her cheekbones, to a crown of shining black horns in two parallel lines that traced out the top of her head. Between the horns, her hair was black, braided tight and bound up at the neck. The tattoo continued down the sides of her neck, outlining the tendons there, disappeared into her white shirt, buttoned all the way up. She was broad shouldered, with a firm curve of her bicep apparent through her grey jacket. She had her arms crossed across her chest, her stance square and unconcerned. Indifference came from her in every step closer I took. _Pessimistic._

Not much to work with there. I turned my attention to Captain Jarcu, a male Mirialan with his own impressive set of facial markings. He was my rebel leader, I’d come to trust him with my life. _Keen. Decided._ Well, that was better then.

“Welcome, professor Arsjami Pinkaske, may I introduce you to one of our finest pilots, Dakatar. Dakatar, Professor Arsjami Pinkaske, the Dawn Bird of the Rebellion.” Captain Jarcu stood graciously, gesturing to each of us in turn. I approached from the opposite side of the table from the Zabrak. “Dakatar is Zabrak, Arsjami, you prefer Human, yes?”

“Yes, human from Bimmissari,” I provided, then greeted them both. “Bright risings, Dakatar and to you, Captain Jarcu.”

Dakatar bowed her head to me in greeting, but said nothing.

“Sit sit,” the captain gestured us down. I accepted, Dakatar did not.

“I had just finished giving Dakatar the basics. You can provide the details.”

“I’m sure,” I said, folding my hands on the table and giving my best lecture-ready smile. I hoped whatever decision he’d already made would be favorable. 

“So, Professor if you would outline the mission at hand?” Captain Jarcu, leaned back, gripping one fist on the other under his chin, waiting and listening. 

“Certainly, Set5, my presentation please.” The light dimmed and the droid projected the sector map, floating on the table top. “Before I joined the Rebellion as a HoloNet ‘caster, I engaged my academic studies more practically, hunting for and collecting ancient Republic relics everywhere I went.” The display changed to a series of drawings of objects, a cup, a statue, a dagger. “In those days, there were still some to find. Now, not so much. Luckily, I hid the items I secured in caches in a few key locations, locations I knew I could come back to. As I have been retired from the HoloNet for an indeterminate amount of time, I would like to spend my sabbatical retrieving those caches and continuing my studies on the items therein.” The first planet blinked in the display. “Further, as I know that there are certain others on Batuu with a similar interest, I could deliver the items there, perhaps even set that up as my base for future HoloNet casts.”

“Batuu is…no,” said the captain. “We’d prefer to have you broadcasting from a very different location. Orsint. Set5…” _Decided_.

The droid switched from my presentation to show planet Orsint. “Also on the edge of Wild Space, but almost as far from Batuu as you can get, for security reasons.”

I blinked slowly at the news. It was too late, his mind was made up. There wasn’t much I could do about it, without digging deeper into my Gift, which I wasn’t prepared to do. I took a deep breath and held it, knowing that both the captain and the Zabrak were judging my response. 

“Is it…nice?” I asked, and immediately regretted such a shallow consideration.

The Zabrak, for the first time, spoke. “It is called The Nightless Place on some maps. How 'nice' it is depends on how you feel about that.”

Captain Jarcu shrugged. “It is a largish planet with a primarily agricultural population of Humans, Tholothians, and Bothans. Towns of any size are mostly at the poles. Orsint orbits three suns such that it is never actually dark. A portion of the year it is too hot to be above ground during the “day” because the suns align in the sky and make the surface uninhabitable. The other three quarters of the year, it is pleasant enough.”

“You’re familiar with it, Dakatar?” I asked. 

She shrugged. _Dismissive_. Before I could ask another question, the captain cut in.

“What it is is far outside of any travel or trade lanes, with a favorable magnetic relationship to the adjacent planets making it a strong transmission point for communications. The news should come from somewhere we are not.”

“I will be there…”

“Along with a crew of technicians and maybe 1 other broadcaster. You’ll have to blend in, make friends. We’ll get you a position at the local academy, to act as a cover and pay any expenses.” _Optimistic_.

“I can do that, sure. I was just hoping for a planet where I could have regular baths,” I joked. Then realized how petulant it sounded.

“I’m sure they’ll be able to accommodate you, professor,” said Captain Jarcu. _Unconcerned_.

“Where am I taking the Professor?” asked Dakatar. The captain gestured at me. I cleared my throat. My entire presentation was designed to convince the captain to send me to Batuu. As that now seemed out of reach, I wasn’t sure the other slides would be worth showing. In my hesitation, the captain stepped in.

“Show the sector map again, Set5.”

It flickered back into focus and brought back my attention. I pointed to the first planet “First, to Geya. Specifically to what’s left of Oz’ka Moot.”

“What’s left of it? Was it destroyed?” Dakatar asked.

“Somewhat, it was mostly abandoned. The Imperials rounded up most of the population for forced labor. Last I was there, no one was left save those judged unfit for work.”

“Could be occupied by anyone or anything by now,” Dakatar observed, barely squinting her eyes. “Definitely will be watched by the Empire.”

“That’s why I’m sending you, Dakatar,” said the captain. “Go on, Professor.”

“Yes…Geya is only about a day’s transit by hyperspace. Shouldn’t be a problem. Then on to Obas. An entirely different ecosystem. Mountainous and wooded. There’s a historical hermitage of great age at the top of the mountain ridge above a mining town called Pais. Great stock of finds hidden there. It is…”

I paused and looked at my listeners. They were both indifferent to the historical review I had prepared. I cleared my throat.

“And lastly, Torg’s Folly.”

Dakatar blew her breath out between her teeth fiercely. “Captain, Torg’s Folly? It is thick with Imperials.”

“I’m sure it is,” the captain responded, unconcerned. 

“You could have just hidden this stuff on Coruscant, it’d be easier to run the blockade!” she exclaimed, finally uncrossing her arms to gesture at the map. “This is from one stronghold to the next, all on highly trafficked hyperspace lanes.”

“I didn’t have the luxury of knowing where the war was going to take us when I was doing my research! Or hiding from them,” I said, waving my own hand through the projection. “I did the best I could, alone and on the run. I don’t need your judgment about that, pilot.” I lost focus, raising my voice at the Zabrak as I defended myself. Not that knowing how they were feeling had turned out to be useful. It was all settled. All I could do now was make the best of it. 

“This is the best you could do,” she declared with a nod, re-crossed her arms. “I have no idea how you made it this far.”

The captain wiped his hands over each other, then raised them to us both. “Settle. Both of you. These are the basics: The Professor is a source of positive morale and recruitment for the cause throughout the sector. Two things we are in sore need of and which I have been tasked with the improvement of. These caches of Old Republic goods would serve both of those purposes. If people know we are respecting and protecting the old ways, that garners us goodwill and again…morale and recruits. This is worth taking as long as it takes.” Captain Jarcu pointed at me. “And worth you doing the flying.” He then pointed at the Zabrak. With both hands extended, he then said: “Do you both understand what I’m getting at?” He looked at each of us in turn. “This is the assignment and you’re the people to do it. Get at it and complete the mission. As The Professor is a known rebel, she is a wanted person by the Empire. Expect to be identified on sight and pursued with all appropriate vigor. Don’t.Get.Caught.”

“It shouldn’t take too long, truly. Especially if we’ve got a ship of any speed,” I added, trying to calm myself down, annoyed at how easily the Zabrak had riled me up.

“I don’t have speed,” said Dakatar. “And I don’t use hyperspace lanes.”

“What? But…”

“Not your area, Professor. I’ll do the preliminary calculations. We stay out of sight and out of mind of the Imperials. I’ll get you there and back with your cargo.”

“That’s what I want to hear, Dakatar. See to it. Professor, she’s the driver. Don’t argue with the driver.”

“Yes Captain,” I acknowledged with a sigh. Control of this trip had been taken from my hands.

“Also, Dakatar, the Professor has never been through anything like this. You might want to do a bit of training with her. Help her get up to speed.”

“Yes Captain.” She sounded as excited as I felt. Not one part of this was going to plan.

“Good. Set5 will be your liaison. If you need anything, he’ll get it for you. Let me know when you pull out. Good luck and may the Force be with you both.”

* * *

I released Set5 from his duty of standing next to me asking if I needed anything, so was standing alone in the hallway when Dakatar came out of the conference room. I’d lost all focus on the Force in our conversation and was struggling to regain it. A vague headache approached, making me abandon the effort. I’d have to do this without.

Dakatar nodded to me when she walked by, but didn’t stop. I had to step double quick to keep up with her.

“Hey, look, sorry about the yelling in there. This trip, these things are important to me. I want to retrieve them safely,” I admitted.

She grunted, kept walking. I persisted, despite her reaction. If I’d fallen back every time someone thought I was too much, well, I’d still be on Bimmissari working a rice paddy. After several steps, she cut her eyes at me as if surprised I was still there. “It is fine. See to your part of the mission. I will see to mine.”

“Yes, let’s. Can I see the ship? Is it large? Fast?”

“The Caiti? I’m headed that way now. I suppose you’ll just follow me there.” She turned quickly down towards the docking levels of the station. This was a temporary Rebel base, this station, neither large nor particularly well equipped. It was functional, not much more. The corridor narrowed till I had to fall back behind Dakatar. I watched the knot of hair at the back of her head bob up and down. Then let my eyes wander down, noticing the tight fit of her grey jacket at her waist, the slim blue pants, with a holster strapped to each thigh. Only one of them seemed fit for a blaster, although they both were empty. Her boots were black, with a bit of red at the heel and toe. Personalized? I wondered. She disappeared down a ladder and there we were.

“She’s a Corellian light freighter, HWK-290 transport,” she commented, proudly, pointing at the ship.

The ship, The Caiti, was about four times longer than it was tall, with a thin pointed nose and midsection, connected to two wings. It perched in the bay, leaned back with the nose higher than the tail. It looked relaxed yet efficiently sharp. Some of the panels had been removed, showing wires and bare metal. A few mechanic droids scurried out of our way as we circled it. 

It didn’t look like much, but ships never did, not to me. Dakatar walked under the nose, reached up and pulled herself up the open hatch on the belly. When there was no noise or indication that a door or ramp was opening, I cleared my throat and looked up the hole. She looked back down at me.

“Come on then. I’ll show you your new base,” she invited me coolly. I clambered in, knocking both my knees in the process.

“The Caiti is modified for shields, sensors and sensor evasion, maneuverability, and single person operation,” Dakatar said pointedly, looking at me. “There’s room inside for 4 passengers, with space to hold supplies that would last months. This will Be your bunk,” she pointed to the lower bunk on the left side as we came in. The higher one held supply crates. Across the way, a dark green curtain had been pulled across the other two bunks. There was space between for a table, allowing the crew to sit on the bunks to eat. Beyond the bunks, on one side was the mess with a replicator and water dispenser. Across from it, the lav. There was another seating area beyond, slightly more comfortable, oriented towards a display for watching vids. Nothing else. It was a tight fit. 

At the end of the crew’s quarters, a circular set of stairs took you to the control deck. Looking around the deck, I had little doubt then where the Corellians had intended the owner to spend their time. It was both more spacious and better appointed than the crew quarters. The roof of the control deck was transparent, giving a full view of the stars above. It felt vast, even looking up at the ceiling of the docking bay. There was a pilot seat in front, a copilot spot behind and two other seats, one on each opposite wall, all with belts and buckles galore. 

“She’s not fast. Between her navicomputer and my brain, we know every back route and quiet way around this half of the galaxy. If you need to get somewhere without being seen, I’m the best you’re going to get. You can see yourself out while I get to calculating. Come back in the morning. I should have time then to make sure you know how to survive outside the ship.”

* * *

The next day, I returned as directed. With a gruff militaristic manner which I’d almost become used to being around so many soldiers, Dakatar ran me through my paces. First, safe and effective blaster use. I’ve got decent aim except when flustered. Second, she wanted to test my self-defense skills. I have had no hand-to-hand training to speak of, and almost got hit in the face multiple times to prove it.

Dakatar snorted as I picked myself up from the ground again. “Not much I can teach you for that, in this short a time,” her tone indicated how pathetic she thought I was. “It is good to know what you’re not able to do, which is defend yourself. Can you run?” 

I shrugged. “You mean, from danger?”

“Yes. As opposed to…”

“For sport.”

She snorted like I’d said the most absurd thing she’d ever heard. Literally crinkled her face too, in disgust. “Be serious.”

“I am. And no, given the opportunity, I generally talk my way out of situations.”

“You can talk to a blaster shot from 100m?”

I clenched my teeth and swallowed the bitterness growing in my throat.

“Fine,” she said when I refused to quip back. “This we’ll have to practice, Princess Professor. Staying close to me.”

For the next few hours, that’s what we did -- drills in how to stay close enough to her so she could physically protect me, while staying out of her way enough that she could shoot or punch or stab or whatever else might come up. She was viscerally physical. Probably double my weight in muscle, she could easily push, pull and lift me around corners and up ladders in the tightest corners of the station. When running down corridors, simulating a moving evasion, I was soon winded, but her breath never labored. She had large hands with sharpened hard nails, shiny black like her horns. Repeatedly, she demonstrated fake strikes to invisible opponents with precise aim like I’d only seen in vids. The physical sharpness was matched by her verbal expressions. She barely spoke and when she did, it was to tell me how wrong I was doing something. Again and again, she pulled me up from the ground when I’d tripped over her feet or my own. Or been pushed so hard into the wall by her momentum that I lost my breath.

“Diktonir’s horns, I have no idea how you’ve survived this long,” she growled when we were back at The Caiti, leaning against the side of the ship.

I bit back all the things I wanted to say. “This is your area of expertise, Dakatar. I have not had the chance to show you mine.”

She looked me up and down slowly, evaluating. She didn’t ask what my expertise was in. I decided to show her.

“Who is Diktonir?”

“What?”

“You swore on their horns. Who are they? A deity?”

“No.” She shook her head, took another drink. While I was drinking water, her cup was filled with something darker, smelling of metal and sweetness. “A hero.”

“From Iridonia?”

She looked at me sharply. I quirked my lip in response. “Yes, I know where Zabrak’s home planet is. Surprised?”

She didn’t answer the question. “No, I’m from a colony world, out past what you call Dantooine. Diktonir is, was, a founder of the colony.”

“What was his story?”

She hadn't taken her eyes off me, they were orange on the outer edge, yellow in the middle, bright, and for the first time, curious.

“This, is my area of expertise, Dakatar. This is what I care about. Please, share the story with me.”

She obliged. “Diktonir was among the first settlers. Ostracized from Iridonia for disrespecting a ruler who didn’t deserve respect. Diktonir, they say despite his adult age, his horns had not grown in. He was behind. And bitter for having been treated as a child despite the fact that he was many years old. That’s why the disrespect. On the new planet, his horns began to grow, and they grew larger with each feat he completed. Clearing the land of poisonous vines for the first settlement. Domesticating the local gruffins for food and burden. Redirecting the river that now bears his name to irrigate our crops.” She held her hand at the level of her horns. Then at each feat of heroism, she raised her hand, higher and higher, until Diktonir’s horns were as long as her arms. I could imagine them as giant displays of power and age.

“Seems a worthwhile ancestor to make an oath against.”

Dakatar nodded. “He took one wife for each horn. Had many children.”

“He sounds like a culture father. Do many of you claim descent from him? 

“My family doesn’t trace our lineage to him, no. Some do.”

“Most worlds have a culture parent. I’m from Bimmisaari, though our culture mother is from my parent’s home planet further out on the rim.”

“A woman founded your race on the planet?”

“That’s what they say, a whole ship full of them lived for many years colonizing the planet. It was only at the very end then men arrived, saving them all from extinction.”

“A great birthing it was,” it was the first time I’d heard her say something light hearted, though she still didn’t smile. I nodded, satisfied that not only had I learned something, I’d gotten her to stop treating me like an idiot. Perhaps I had finally broken the ice.

“I’m starving. Let’s go have some dinner in the mess? We can continue this conversation?” I offered.

“No, you go on. I have things to attend to. Still haven’t gotten all my parts back from repairs.”

“Oh.” 

She nodded me away and disappeared up the hatch before I had the chance to say anything further.

That night, while showering, I found myself thinking of her, wondering about the meaning of her facial tattoos, imagining how they might sweep over her shoulders and back. My mind lingered on her, tracing down her waist, legs…

“Mother’s breath, I want to bed that woman.”


	2. Boundaries Aren’t Just for Countries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arsjami and Dakatar continue to try to get along. This goes about as well as expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boundary negotiations incoming. Consent is everything.

The next day I arrived at The Caiti, ready to load my things into the ship. The mechanic droids were gone, just Dakatar, with her head inside a panel on the underside of one wing.

“Bright risings!” I called out, cheerily.

She removed her self from the machinery, pulling a rag from her belt to wipe her hands. She grunted a greeting. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Professor?”

“I figured I’d move in!” I smiled, pointed to the pieces of luggage at my feet. She looked at the pile, back and me, at the pile with all the annoyance her face could announce. Which was quite a lot.

“There is no way in the hundred sufferings you’re taking that much into my ship. What is all this then?”

I stuttered in reply, “my clothes, belongings…”

Dakatar opened the first case and pawed through it. Whatever muck she’d failed to remove from her hands, she wiped over my clothes. I could see the blue black smear on my white dress tunic.

“This is too much. How many changes of clothes do you need to sit in a ship?” She pushed that case aside, opened the next one. Treated the contents — my snacks and toiletries — with the same disrespect. Soap mixed with powder mixed with sweets with nuts. My heart was racing with what to say, anger fighting politeness in my head. As she pushed that case aside and turned to open the third one, I stopped her. I stomped my foot on the ground between her and it. The look she gave me, from my toes to my face, was pure threat.

“Please, those are personal things. There’s no need to treat them so careless,” I pleaded.

“Then you will have to pack with greater care, Professor. One.” She raised her hand with a single finger pointing upward. “That’s all there’s room for.” She swatted at the unopened case. “Make it fit.” She stood, turned her back to me without another word and went back to what she was doing.

“But what about the rest?”

She shrugged her shoulders to me.

Embarrassed and surprised, I pulled my things together, took them back to my room and resorted, repacked, down to just one case. Three changes of clothes, two of shoes, two overcoats. Soap for face, body, and teeth. These things are important. I’d just cut my hair — I was as close to bald as I’d ever been, with a flat mass of black curls covering my head. I’d kept my side curls tho, because I liked them. So I left my few hair products. Face too, and skin. I downloaded all of my books to my datapad and left behind my small portable meditation kit, taking only the pillow and a light.

I had lunch, centered myself, and tried to feel better. I had no doubt there was some way to find, if not Dakatar’s heart, at least her good side. I tried again.

“Pleasant settings, Dakatar. I’ve done as you asked.”

She was nowhere to be seen, so I called her name again. She popped her head down the hatch.

“Yes? You’re back?”

“I am.” I pointed to the case. “One bag. As directed.”

“Very well, bring it in.” Her head disappeared back where it had come.

I pulled the bag to the opening and looked up, down at the bag. I wasn’t tall enough to lift it in, nor fit enough to get it and me into the ship in one step.

“A hand please? Or is there a ramp?”

“Ramp is broken.” Her disembodied voice came down from the cockpit. There was no offer of assistance.

With a deep breath, I dragged myself up to the hatch, again hitting my shins, then struggled to reach back for the bag. After a few attempts, I heard her behind me. Her amused smirk at my position — laying on the deck, having kicked the bag over to where I could reach it and trying to pull it up to me — only made it all worse.

“Move.” She was down, and back up with the bag with seemingly no effort at all. She dropped it next to the bunk she’d indicated was mine.

“There.”

“Thank you,” I said flatly, pushing up to standing.

With a minimum number of words, she indicated where my things were allowed — and where they were not. She then gave the briefest review of appliances in the lav and the kitchen possible. Luckily, they weren’t that complicated. In the cockpit I was to touch nothing unless specifically directed to do so.

I retreated to the quarters, unpacked. She muttered and mumbled in the cockpit. I heard the engine roll over and a sound of satisfaction. Whatever needed fixing, seemed repaired now. Engine off, she came down the stairs, right near me. I patted her on the back -- “good job, seems we’re ready” was what I planned to say. What happened instead was I said “good…” and my hand stopped above her shoulder. I felt her vice of a hand on my wrist, then the room flipped over and I opened my eyes to the ceiling, my wrist pinned and twisted.

“Don’t.”

She was standing over me, her finger pointed down at me as she released my wrist.

“Don’t touch me,” she warned.

I made a wounded noise, pulling my arms into my chest before kicking away from her…down the open hatch and on to the floor outside.

Everything hurt, the back of my head down my spine to both my hips. I lay there stunned. At the first sight of her head looking down at me, I scurried up and out, rushing back to my room as quickly as I could. I had to have another pilot. This was too much.

I spoke with Captain Jarcu as soon as I could get a hold of him. He made it clear that Dakatar and the Caiti were the only option available to me. If I didn’t take this trip now, there was no predicting when I might again have the chance. He also tried to list for me Dakatar’s virtues, but I was not in the mood. I took two pain pills and a glass of wine and went to bed.

The next day, the Captain asked to see me, so I went. Hoping he had changed his mind. He had not. He was there again in the conference room with Dakatar. She was seated this time, her hands on the tabletop, looking properly chastened.

“Thank you, Professor Pinkaske for joining us. Dakatar has something to say.”

“I have been unkind. I apologize,” she said, with all the sincerity of a child caught in a petty crime.

Jarcu nodded his head once. “I leave you two to work out the details. I’ll say only this further: time is not on your side. If you’re not out of here in 3 cycles, I’m going to scrap this errand and you’ll both be reassigned. Consider that.” The normally serene Mirialan rapped his knuckles on the table for effect and left the room.

I clasped my hands behind my back and waited.

“I will complete this assignment, because it is important. To the cause. Just as you are,” Dakatar started, her eyes appraising me slowly. “However, we have to get some things clear.” I inclined my head to the side, listening. “I’ve been doing this for the rebellion since the beginning — running errands, guns, blockades. There’s no secret stash I can’t find or secret path I can’t navigate. To do that, I run a tight ship and I’m used to running it alone. I don’t often accommodate…other people. Especially not presumptuous people who think they know me after a few conversations or think they understand something about me because they know where Iridonia is.”

My own irritation grew the longer the lecture went on. “I’ve done nothing to deserve this little speech, Dakatar. You threw me.”

“I twisted your wrist. You fell. More importantly, you touched me without permission. Which I cannot abide. Don’t. Not me. Not my hair. None of it. For some reason, some humans think they can just touch anyone they want, and I will not allow it.”

“Won’t happen again,” I snapped.

“I know it won’t,” she retorted, but it, like her posture, was a threat. She continued, “The Caiti is my home, you’ll respect it as such.”

“Of course. You share it with me as a matter of convenience. I know that.”

She paused, evaluating. “Anything else?” I asked, trying to sound sincere.

“I’m the pilot. I make all navigational decisions."

“I wouldn’t know a star chart if I had it tattooed on my arm.” I replied. “Wouldn’t dream of second guessing you there.”

“Good. From my experience, Professors like to second guess. Everyone.”

“So far, the only thing I have done is to touch you. A mistake I will not repeat. Let’s not act like I’ve committed all the crimes when I’ve only done one.” She didn’t like that logic, but couldn’t speak against it. “Anything else?” I asked again.

“No. Is there…I’m a fair person. Is there anything you would like to add? I will respect your space, your bunk and your belongings. And I have had the food processor set to include those that you prefer.”

“At this point I’d settle for not being talked down to or threatened.”

Dakatar cleared her throat, unpleased with my attitude. I however did not regret giving it.

“Consent is mutual. Boundaries are shared. If you do not tell me what yours are, I will run afoul of them later, when we are trapped in a tiny metal floating box. I’d rather know what they are now. And if you cannot speak them, well…” It was a strangely rational thing for her to say.

“I wish we had had this conversation three cycles ago.”

“It probably would have been better.”

“Let me think.. I’ve never been in this kind of situation before I… please respect my person and my things the way you’ve asked me to respect yours. Um, I have times of meditation or study, during which I can’t be disturbed. I hope we can find ways to work around that in a small space. And thirdly…A warning, next time, before you resort to…”

“Unilaterally pushing you around. Yes, that is fair. You can’t exactly defend yourself.”

I gave a look of surrender. We nodded together.

“Now, that’s done. I trust we’ll have a more successful trip overall,” I concluded.

“Agreed.” She stood from the table and headed out.

“Now, if I move metal, we can be out of here in 12 hours. Will you be ready?”

“Yes.”

“See you on the Caiti.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do leave comments and kudos!  
> Feed your local fanfic writer.


	3. Places I Used to Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arjsami and Dakatar arrive at their first planet. The adventure starts here.  
> Hope you enjoy Oz'ka Moot!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bright Risings, readers!  
> No content warnings yet.

It didn’t take us half a day by hyperspace lane. It was more like four days, through a complicated combination of lightspeed jumps, gravity swings, and subspace travel.

“If we slip in, it is easier to slip out,” Dakatar advised as she punched in the final coordinates and sent us on our way.

Given our first few encounters, I carefully relegated my attraction to Dakatar to the dark quiet corner of my mind. It was important that we get along as we sat in a large rocket alone together for the next month. Me getting my emotions out of whack over her wouldn’t make that time better. And given my Gifts, might only make them more complicated. I set about trying to figure out how best to get along. In those first days, the best approach seemed to be to stay out of the way and keep any chit chat to a minimum. I wanted to ask so many questions, about how she’d come to this — Being a rebel isn’t really a job — calling. Wanted to ask about her planet, her likes, her loves. But it was clear that none of that would get further than I could throw a Bantha. I resigned myself to sitting in the co-pilot seat looking at the back of her head, flipping through old files on my datapad, looking for patterns I’d never had time to find before.

By day three, we did talk over our two meals a day. Food was a topic she had more than monosyllabic opinions about.

“Bright risings! I love a good porridge in the morning,” I proclaimed warmly as she emerged perfectly smooth and arranged as always from the lav. When I came out of the lav, it always felt like I’d been surprisingly ejected. Like there’s a pop of powder and a cloud of soap bubbles, then I’m adjusting my clothes trying to not look too guilty as I stumble out.

I punched up breakfast on the replicator. Warm, I covered it with blue milk and sweetened fruit. The sneer on her face was almost funny. 

“What?” I asked.

“I’m a meat eater,” she responded, punching up her own breakfast. “Any grains or such in the replicator are for you.”

“Thank you. I can’t tolerate a lot of meat in my diet.” I sat down under the vidscreen and ate. She sat at the table in the middle of the bunks, facing me, so that was a win. Before her, a mug the size of a cantina drinking vessel, steamed.

She arched a careful eyebrow at me. “Humans aren’t vegetarians, generally speaking.”

“No, I’m not either, strictly speaking. I just…let’s say I didn’t get a lot of meat as a child, so even now, meat doesn’t always agree with me. A good bowl of rice cooked almost smooth tho? The best.”

“It was…a childhood meal?”

I nodded, took the chance on a question, “same for you?” I gestured at her steaming cup. It smelled of meat and spices.

“Yes. It gets the fires of the digestion going, first thing.”

I looked appreciatively. After a few appropriate moments of silence, I tried again, “Do you eat fruit?”

“I do like fruit,” she responded.

“It is one of those things you can’t replicate, a perfect Dorian passion fruit.”

“Orange,” she made a hand motion for the size of it, “fits perfectly in the palm.”

“Juicy as a…”

“Fresh kill.”

I laughed.

“The juice is red and...”

“It is,” I waved her off, so as to avoid any details. “I wasn’t going to say that, but, I guess you’re not wrong.” I felt suddenly uncomfortable.

“Have you never,” she asked, “eaten fresh meat? Raw?”

I wrinkled my face. “No, never.”

“It is…” she looked down into the mug, then back up at me with her yellow-orange eyes and her careful diction. “Perfection.” My toes curled. “Sublime. Warm, textured on the tongue,” she wiped the corner of her mouth with her thumb, “and you know that something has been *given* to you, either by your will or someone else's.” The strength of her emotional experience left me a little breathless. I looked back down into my bowl.

“You make it sound…good.”

“Satisfying, that’s what it is.”

I looked back up and she was still looking at me. I decided to be honest with her.

“What, are you considering eating me?” I meant it as a joke, but a joke wasn’t what I felt.

“I eat meat. Even though you are soft, you are not prey,” she said, but topped it off with a wicked smile over the top of her mug of broth. I went back to my bowl and let her finish in peace, walk past me up the stairs to the cockpit. I sat at the table a long while, trying to get all of my impulses pushed back into their dark corner.

Geya was an unexpected planet. In some places it was covered in flooded plains, deepening to bogs and swamps. From these wetlands, giant plateaus rose, scoured flat on top by an almost constant wind. Oz’ka Moot was built into a canyon between two such plateaus, occupying the sides of the plateau and the valley floor for many miles. Well, it used to anyway. Much of it was depopulated now. Dakatar pulled the Caiti in large circles around the old spaceport on the top of the plateau. There were a few spots clear. However it seemed there was no tower calling out directions. After failing to get a response, she lowered down to a spot furthest from the gate.

“How long do you expect this will take?” she asked, pulling an overcoat over her white shirt and blue pants. The holsters held a blaster each, and something bladed.

“The school where I taught is in one of the suburbs of the city. Before, there were rides you could catch, get you there in under an hour, given traffic. Now…” I shrugged.

She made a calculating face, stood in front of the crates of supplies. “Open that bag. Pack it with what I give you.”

“How big is this crate?”

I made a motion with my arms, “Small enough for me to carry, but heavy.”

“We’ll skip the repulsorlift then. Don't want to stand out.”

Along with the backpack of food and water, she handed me a communicator, which I pinned up my sleeve. I checked my jewelry and dropped a few candies into my bag. I pulled on my hooded cloak from when I’d lived here and we went down and out the hatch. Setting the security behind us.

We found one of the boulevard-wide ramps down from the starport and immediately landed in the middle of what had once been Central Oz’ka Moot. While it was depopulated, it wasn’t empty. The streets were filled with either an echo of activity somewhere out of sight, or an eerie silence, as if everyone and everything was in hiding. At some points, we would turn a corner and catch a whiff of cooking. Otherwise, the smells were either absent, or bad. Rot and decay came from old restaurants and shops. Everywhere, doors were broken, curtains and bedding hanging from windows overhead. We would go blocks seeing no one, only to then come upon a cluster of 5 or 10 people. All humans — Oz’ka had almost no other sentient beings to speak of. Huddled together, many were missing arms, or legs. Some begged us for food. Dakatar made it clear we shouldn’t get too close. On their outstretched arms, scabs of sickness were obvious. A tissue wasting disease that wasn’t common galactically, had returned to haunt the distant places in the wake of the latest Imperial threats. It worsened, like everything, by hunger and thirst, lack of shelter…exactly the conditions in Oz’ka Moot. After the first hour, we had left the city center and had made our way to the suburbs. The street before us widened. I took a deep breath and prepared to pick up the pace.

“Nice! Finally, a clear way,”

Dakatar put her arm out, stopping me from going forward. She pointed to the sides of the buildings to either side.

“Look at that. And that.”

On the buildings was a looping design. After a moment of looking, the pattern appeared.

“It is a sigil of some kind.”

“Yes. That’s a B’oror stamp. This isn’t safe.”

“B’oror?”

“They’re a minor crime syndicate, most of their members are street toughs. They thrive on planets like this, taking over abandoned places and stripping them for anything of value. We have to go around.”

“And hope they haven’t found my school.”

“That too.”

We doubled back, climbed to the top of a block of buildings and caught our breath.

“Do we have any way for me to see the city from above?”

I pulled up the old street layout on my datapad. 

“Did the Troopers just leave behind everyone who was sick? Or did they purposely infect the population…” I wondered while we got our bearings.

“Does it matter?”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t like this when I lived here. This used to be a beautiful city.”

It was certainly no longer. The elaborate staircases and ramps were pitted and often half collapsed. There could be little doubt that there had been combat in the streets, exploded buildings, blocked roadways. But again, if it was during the deportation or after, I couldn't tell. We had to go back up the canyon side and use stairs and ramps to navigate around the gang territory. What had been less than an hour’s ride, perhaps a few hours walk, took us most of the day to traverse.

“There, this is it, the district where I taught. The sign post is still here.”

Mostly. The district marker was there, an arch over the staircase leading up to the cliff side. It was dented, the paint faded, but still standing. A good omen.

“I remember the way from here,” tired as I was, I ran up the stairs.

The school where I’d spent 3 seasons — the tree that shaded the courtyard was gone, the well stuffed with I don’t want to know what. The circle of buildings was still there, doors still on the hinges. Standing in the courtyard as the sun set, I felt suddenly nostalgic. This was a place the Imperials hadn’t bothered to destroy. They’d just gutted it and left it to rot.

“My classroom is there,” up a few stairs, the sign “M. Pinkaske, Primary Education” was still on the door. I gave it a push and it opened easily. Inside it was as I’d left it, except that the glass windows had been shattered inward. The desks and floor were covered in the debris, broken glass, dirt and leaves. I took a moment to walk down the aisles, letting the memory of it haunt me.

“This is…a children’s classroom,” Dakatar noted, standing in the doorway.

“Yes,” I nodded, “I taught younglings, 8, 10 years old. They were so amazing.”

“I…you didn’t teach university?”

I looked over my shoulder at her, “no, I teach children. They are the best minds in the galaxy.”

“I took you for a…”

“Intellectual snob?”

“That, yes.”

“I am that,” I admitted with a smile. “That’s why I teach children. There is no challenge of the mind like a room full of 8 year olds.”

Dakatar stopped in mid-response, raising her hand for my silence. She turned and pulled her blaster just as I saw the shadow through the broken window. Habitually, she gestured me behind her, grabbing my arm to position me where she wanted me as the shadow became a person in the doorway.

“Who are you?” they asked, challenging us. They raised a weapon I couldn't recognize. I responded.

“My name is Pinkaske, I was a teacher here, years ago. Who are you?”

“Miss P? Is that you?”

“It is I,” I pushed my hood back and stepped clear so the person could see me. “Do I know you?”

“It’s Bona, Bona J. I was in your class!” She took another step forward so the light from the window fell on her face. One half of her face held a hand-sized scar, dragging down her lips and eye.

“Bona J, my student of the quarter! Oh Bona J, it is so good to see a familiar face here.”

“You’ve no idea Miss P. I would never have thought I’d see you again.” She lowered her weapon. “What are you doing here?”

Dakatar made a subtle hand gesture of caution, palm down with a sawing motion side to side. I took the hint. “It is a long story, Bona J. Are you alone out here?”

“No, we are still here, give or take.”

“I’ll take the give. I’d love to see everyone.”

“They’ll all be here soon enough. We gather in the courtyard at dark to share what we’ve found for the day.” She turned her back with a wave. “This way.”

Back outside, looking down into the courtyard, which had started to go dark, I could see more shadows in doorways and windows. By the time we reached the tree, 5 more people had arrived, collecting around us. Bona J was the only student of mine, but there were several others who had attended the school. I introduced Dakatar as my research partner, which none of them questioned. By full dark, there was a fire and a collection of a dozen people. While I talked to Bona J and the others, catching up on what had happened, Dakatar stealthily pulled some food from our packs and shared it. The residents took it hungrily.

“All this destruction?”

“Imperials, then a second wave of slavers. Did you see the stricken? The plague bearers.”

“We did…”

“They are our protection. Most explorers and scavengers don't bother to get past them to get to us. Just you. Is that why you’re here, to scavenge?”

“No no. I left something here, a family heirloom, in the rush to evacuate. I was hoping things had quieted down enough, I could retrieve it.”

“Your place should be undisturbed. No new teachers have come, that’s for sure.”

“For sure.”

“Why don't you go up in the morning? I’ll take you.”

“I remember the way. No need for you to worry over it. We’ll be leaving in the morning anyway.”

“I would reconsider that, if I were you. Dust storm is coming. If you’re in anything smaller than a large freighter, you won't be able to take off.”

I looked at Dakatar. She’d barely spoken, just listened, warily. 

“We’ll see,” I said, noncommittally. “At the very least, we can bunk down in my old place. You said it wasn’t taken.”

“Yeah, yea, you can do that.”

After dinner and some trading, the cluster of people faded back into the darkness. We took our leave, promising we’d come see Bona J at the tree in the morning before we left. My place was just a little further up the cliff side, easy to find in the light of the moon.

The door to the apartment block was broken in. We proceeded carefully down the corridor. It was clear every apartment had been sacked. There was no one to be seen.

“Which one is yours?”

“At the end.”

“It’s been stripped, like everywhere else.”

“Down to the frames,” I shrugged sadly. “But it should be quiet enough for us to sleep the night.”

“Can’t stay here. Too easy to get trapped if someone does come along. Plus, you told everyone where we’d be.”

“Why shouldn’t I have?”

“You don’t know those people…”

“Except I do.”

“You did. Who they are now, what they’d do for this pack full of food…you don’t know them anymore, I assure you.”

I had to sigh.

“Is the box still here?”

“Let me get it.”

In the closet floor, all of my clothes had been riffled and ripped, but they hadn’t found the compartment under the old chest of drawers. The compartment I’d dug out for keeping exactly this box. I opened it to check the contents and sighed again, this time happily. This at least wasn’t broken. While going through the box, I felt Dakatar’s energy shift before I heard her.

A low hiss of warning, “Arsjami, we have to go.”

“I’m on my way,” I called. I felt defiant and refused to whisper. I checked everything in the box again, annoyed at her tone, her attitude. I did know these people, we’d been friends. She…she didn’t know…

I walked out of the bed room, the heavy box in front of me. In the living room, I didn’t see anyone. I was about to call out for her, when a heavy arm came around from behind me, covering my mouth and pulling me backwards. It was her hiss at my ear that kept me from screaming.

“Quiet yourself. We’ve got company. We have to move, quickly and quietly. Stay close.”

At the doorway, I heard them, searching. They were between us and the door downstairs. I turned to the other end of the hall, pointed with my head at the far door. Dakatar took the box from me and pushed me forward silently.

I walked as fast as I dared, opened the door slowly and slid through into the back stairway. Once we were behind the door together, it was pitch black. She put her back to the door and pulled me close again, her lips to my ear. “Where’s this go?” she asked.

“Up,” I hissed under my breath, snatching my arm away from her and feeling for the railing. Up two flights, I felt with open hands for the door I remembered to be there, praying it was unlocked as always. It was. We groped together onto the roof. It was barely light, illuminated by a distant moon on the horizon. There was an eerie glow on the horizon to our south. The promised sand storm.

Dakatar moved past me, almost running, doubled over, till she got to the edge of the roof and looked down. I followed, feeling useless and growingly scared. Looking over, I could see two people at the door below us. Mother’s Breath. Two of the townsfolk. They’d certainly followed us. Dakatar turned abruptly, looked across the roof, then headed for the opposite wall, where another taller building stood. She pushed me up to the other roof, handed me the box, then climbed up herself.

“What are we doing,” I whispering.

“Moving.”

“We should go find Bona J. She can help us.”

“You’re an idiot. That was her in the hallway, didn’t you hear her voice?”

I stopped, staring, about to object.

“We have to get out of this area, out to somewhere they won’t bother to follow.”

“The terrace above us,” I pointed, “I know where a home is up there, built into the cliff face.”

She looked up in the direction I pointed. Nodded. “How far?”

“15 minutes, back before…”

“We go.”

Up one more building and across, we came to a ladder down to some cliff cut stairs. Up the stairs we came out on a street, the edge of the terrace above. Up further, the wind started to whip. It smelled cleaner. The sand was starting to swirl in frantic patterns. We ran.

“Where to?” she asked, when I stopped, leaning against a building to catch my breath. This was definitely more running than I’d ever planned to do. “Where are we going?”

“An old friend’s house. He left when I did, but his family house should still be there. It is cut into the cliff. Just down this side street.”

The side street had a barricade, broken through at some point before. Ducking behind it, it became clear it had once hidden this conclave of homes, thin and multi-storied, stretching upwards. I picked the one I knew and tried the door.

“Locked.”

Dakatar gave it a look, then planted her foot into the knob, breaking it cleanly with one kick. “Is there another way out of here?”

“Yes, there’s a back tunnel, all the houses have them. It leads to the market beyond.”

“Check that door.”

The house was only one room deep, the other door was obvious under the stairs. I tried it. “Still locked.”

“Stay here.” She directed with that pointing finger again. She sat the box down and searched the rest of the house. The single room was dark as the stairwell had been, the only light barely visible through the cracked front door. From what I could see, the house looked undisturbed. I squished the Cushions still on the couches in the front entry room. Upstairs would be the kitchen. Then up each flight, a private room, there were 2 floors of those, with the family living room on the top floor. I remembered it had a commanding view of the city of Oz’ka Moot, as it had once been. 

“Clear. Undisturbed,” Dakatar announced with an exhale of relief.

I let myself exhale too, sinking to sit on the box. “Mother help us.”

Dakatar closed the door, using a coat rack to hold it closed. She pulled out a lantern and thumbed it on. The light was welcome, even if it made the once comfortable house even more haunting.

“How do you know this place?”

“A friend’s house, like I said. I hoped it was far enough out of the way to avoid being looted.”

“It was someone’s last stand from the look of the barricade.”

“Not him. He left with me.”

She didn’t ask any more about it. Instead, she searched the house again. I just sat with the light, the weight of the destruction I’d witnessed settling into my consciousness with the recognition that Bona J had come looking for us. I regretted not having the time to read her emotions more clearly. And when would that time have been? 

“She wasn’t going to do us any harm,” I objected to no one.

“Who? Your former student?”

“Yes,”

“You keep telling yourself that, Miss P.” Dakatar slid her pack off her shoulders and leaned against the wall. “We should be safe enough here, at least for the night. No-one’s been here, no one’s coming. And we’re safe from the storm. Get some rest.” She nodded to the couch.

I wiped my hands across my face, realizing late that I was crying. She didn’t say anything about it as I pulled myself to the couch and buried my face in the cushions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> Yes, I spent an hour picking the name of the fruit in the first scene. Because what is fanfic for if not obsessing over details?  
> I can't even tell you how long it takes me to pick which species to feature...
> 
> Kudos and comments welcome.


	4. Lost Things, Near at Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arsjami and Dakatar shelter from the sandstorm. Once Arsjami's abilities make themselves more apparent, conversation and closeness naturally develop.

I woke up hungry.  
Dakatar was sitting next to the door she’d opened just a crack. I could see her face in the light, her fingers fiddling with something in her lap as she sat, watching. She didn’t move at all till my feet touched the ground. Above us, transom windows let in a dim light, enough to see the room. The light was muted, yellow, eerie. Outside, a rushing roar ebbed and flowed.  
“The storm came,” I said, for no reason at all.  
“Your friend must have a magical ability to predict the weather.”  
“There are signs, if you know how to read them. Birds flying, dogs hiding. I never got the whole of it, and just listened to the reports to know when to expect them. But to a native…they can predict the storms without anyone else’s help.”  
That seemed a better answer than Bona J having magical powers.   
“So what do we do now?” I asked, not wanting to discuss magic.  
“We’re safe here. No one is moving around while the storm blows over. We have to be ready to move as soon as it breaks. Can’t give anyone a chance to find us.”  
I nodded. “Hungry?”  
“No. I’ll get an hour’s sleep, if you’re awake enough? Say my name and I’ll wake.”  
I nodded, took her spot by the door while she stretched out on the couch and quickly fell asleep.  
It was anything but silent. The wind screeched and howled, or lulled into a moan. Never quiet, never still. The bay of houses was crafted such to keep the sand out of the doors and windows, but I still didn’t risk leaving the door open. I just sat with my back against It, eating my ration bar, watching the yellow light through the windows, trying not to think too much. I didn’t succeed. I dug the candy from the bottom of my pack and crunched it, the sweet gooeyness strangely comforting. I should have packed more.  
It was, actually, the first time I’d ever seen Dakatar sleep. She always was up before me and down after me on the Caiti. Stretched out, her legs crossed at the ankles, she filled the couch and hung over the arm besides. Her face was perfectly serene, strong cheekbones and brow. I marvelled at how similar in color we were, although my brown skin sung with a red tone, and hers with yellow. Our hair also, so different. Hers black and straight pulled back into a series of ponytails, mine a mass of tight brown curls. I pulled at the forelocks that hung in front of my ear, out of habit and pulled my eyes off of her sleeping form, lest she wake. Indeed, a few minutes later, Dakatar woke with snort, as from a dream. She scrubbed her hands over her face as she sat up and I could hear her murmuring, humming perhaps, some repeated tune. It was a brief moment of vulnerability, but once her boots hit the floor and she stood, it was gone.  
“There must be lots of cities like this across the galaxy. Cities the imperials destroyed just because they could,” I ventured a comment to cover the howling wind.  
“There certainly are,” she replied flatly.  
“This was the first city I lived in after I left Pangalactic.”  
She sighed. “Ok, I’ll ask. What’s Pangalactic?  
“University of Pangalactic studies at Lorrd University. Lorrd City. Where I went to school.”  
“Lorrd City? Huh, haven’t been, but I’ve heard of it.”  
“Mostly academics.”  
“Ah, not missing much then.”  
I wondered why she was picking fun at me, here, now. Not wanting to see what an argument would look like, I stood, stretched, wandered up the stairs of the house, through the rooms. The light barely changed. The only way I knew time passed was by looking at my datapad. Knowing time was passing didn’t make it easier or faster. Just piled up my anxiety about what would happen after the storm ended.  
I sat on his bed, looking up at the windows. Dakatar came to the door.  
I gave a reluctant smile and started talking, giving her the option of walking away, I had to say something, to someone, to soften the loss. “This was the first place I stayed, when I moved here. Porti and I shared this bed and the nights were so perfect. Hot, but not sweltering. His mother hung flowers in the windows, so when the wind blew the room smelled unlike anything else. We had sex for hours…”  
“Hold on…you said your friend lived here?”  
I shrugged. “Lover really. I didn’t want to get into it then…”  
“Then please don’t get into it now.”  
“Oh. Too much? I…sure. Just the memory of it, it is powerful and sweet and I wanted to share it.”  
Dakatar grunted, looked away, didn’t leave.  
“His mother made the best flastbread. Spicy and soft. And his sister…we would sit in the family room on the top floor, looking out over the city and eating bread and his sister would play the luture.”  
“You said he left with you, from this place.”  
“Yeah, all of us. Me, him, his mom and his sister, all on one of the last ships out.”  
“Where is he now?”  
“Don’t know. We split up at the first refugee camp. It didn’t take too long for me to find a job, and I was gone. No hard feelings.”  
“You left him so easily?”  
“It wasn’t like that Dakatar.”  
“You were lovers?  
“Sure, but that’s just because he was really good at it. He had this way with his hands…”  
“Please don’t.”  
“Sex makes you uncomfortable?”  
“Speaking about it so casually does.”  
“It is just sex.”  
“For you, perhaps.”  
“It is like anything else. It can be as serious or not as you want it to be, as long as all parties agree. With Porti, it wasn’t serious. He knew that,” I tried to explain.  
She made a face that I couldn’t read from the side. I shrugged, annoyed at myself that I’d said too much. Annoyed at her for not saying anything at all. At a time when I most wanted connection, Loneliness settled on me with the dust of the room. I laid down on the bed, stretched out across it the wrong way, looking up at the ceiling, where the posts of the bed nearly touched the wooden rafters.   
_Here._ The request came from the hidden corners of the rafters, soft, clear.  
“Do you have a light, Dakatar?” I reached my hand out to her and she handed it to me. Standing on the bed, I couldn’t quite reach the corner where I knew something was hiding. “Give me a hand?” I said, pointing.  
She climbed up next to me and half scaling the bedpost, she reached her hand onto the rafter. She came down with a parcel wrapped in rags, the size of a bottled drink. I knew what it was before I unwrapped it.  
“What is it?”  
“A…A family heirloom for meditation and prayer, an altar item for honoring the Force,” I observed, opening it carefully on the bed. It was stone carved, smooth and grey. In the middle was the Ashla. To either side were robed figures holding it up, lifting it perhaps. Around the bottom were letters, words.  
“What does it say?” Dakatar asked.  
“I am One with the Force, And the Force is One with Me,” I read, turning it around in my hands. It felt cool and heavy in my hands. _Beloved. Left behind. Porti’s mother holding it, she was younger. She had owned this when she was young, very young. Before that, a family shrine. Someone Prayed to it for forgiveness, for acceptance of a sacrifice, a price paid. She was given directions to never ever let this thing go. Yet here it is, alone._  
I left it slip from my hands, bounce on the bed. There was more, but here, not knowing what Dakatar would say or do, I didn’t risk it. Still, her eyes were probing on me, her teeth set on edge. She knew something wasn’t as it seemed. She retreated from the room, leaving me alone to the howling wind.  
. . .

“Let me see the map, Arsjami.”  
She asked politely, which should have been a sign something was amiss. I handed it to her as I took my bundled statue to the lock box, adding it to my collection. The light had fallen to a distant glow. She hunched down next to the lantern and flipped through the screens.  
“This might let up overnight. I’ll need some idea of how to get us out of here. What I wouldn’t give for a speeder, even a hover cart…”  
“Maybe there’s one nearby. Hidden somewhere.” I shrugged, sank onto the couch.  
“Can you find one? Like you found that statue?” I didn’t need the Gift to understand what her body language was telling me. “And don’t tell me you saw that statue up there. I couldn’t see it until I put my hand on it, and my eyes are better than yours.”  
I pulled my knees up under my tunic, wrapped my arms around them and rested my head. “This is a cosmic joke. The Mother’s flock of starbirds are having fun at my expense. It is so.”  
“I asked you a question, Arsjami.”  
“And why should I answer it, Dakatar? Why should I tell you anything at all?”  
I returned her glare, suddenly, strangely, scared, yet still unmoved. “From the day we met, you’ve not ever had a kind word for me, never asked me how I was nor cared for the answer. You’ve made it abundantly clear that I’m to consider you some kind of hired driver who also can shoot at things. So why ask me a question at all? Believe what you will. I saw it. I smelled it. I suddenly remembered it was there. Whatever. I have it and I can’t find a speeder-bike. That’s all.”  
Dakatar, for the first time in our time together, looked genuinely surprised. And then, genuinely impressed. She leaned back on her hips slightly, head tilted to the side, the barest smile on her face. “I ask,” she said, her voice strangely softened, but her eyes still hard. “Because I’m curious. Because I, like many in my family, know the smell of the Force when it moves near me. I wanted to know if you knew it too. From your reaction, it seems you do.” She set the datapad down, folded her hands in her lap. “As for the rest, perhaps I am so used to being treated like a hired driver that I have begun acting like one. It does no benefit to become friends with everyone.”  
“We will spend the next many weeks, months together. That would be abundantly more pleasant if we were friends.”  
“And what happens when we part? Our paths will cross and you will pretend I’m not there.”  
“You don’t know me, Dakatar. Whomever else you may have known, That is not who I am.”  
“Or if I get shot for you, would our being friends change that?”  
“You’ve known some real assholes.” I said sharply, untangling my arms and legs. “That is your past. Not mine.”  
“How do I know that?”  
I held my hands out in front of me, shrugged. “You take me as I am and you take the chance. As I take the chance on you. Or we keep doing this your way, and guarantee all the bad results you already expect from me.”  
She had to lower her eyes at that, admit I was right. “In this galaxy, it is true that people rarely surprise you. You get what you expect.”  
“That is because expectations dictate so much of our experience.”  
“So you want me to expect more of you?” Dakatar raised her eyes to mine, I braved her stare and nodded.  
“Yes. Dare me to live up to your expectations, not down to them. I do the same for you.”  
“I exceed expectations, Arsjami.”  
“Prove it.”  
She smiled at my bravado.  
“You are unnaturally friendly, even for a human, an already unnaturally friendly species. That alone is a challenge I will face.”  
“Yes, I’m…it is a weakness of mine, I’ll admit to that.” I smiled back, exhaling slowly. “This the truth, Dakatar. This trip, these places, they ask a lot of me. Like being dragged through my own past by a gruffin with a grudge to settle, hitting my head on every regret. I can’t do that with a driver by my side. We don’t have to be best friends, but I need someone I can talk to. Someone who cares what happens to me.”  
“Captain Jarcu made it clear your work is important to the Rebellion. So it is important to me.”  
“That’s not the compliment you think it is. I am not my work, Dakatar.”  
“Our works are all that’s left of our legacy, Arsjami, when the next generation lays our bodies on the pyre. To be fair, your works, even what I’ve seen, deserve more consideration than I’ve paid you. I can be more considerate. Perhaps I’ll be an attentive driver.”  
“That would be an improvement. Maybe even work our way up to friendly personal guard?”  
“Whew, you’re asking a lot. How about aloof personal guard?”  
“I’ll take it.”  
We were both smiling, for the first time, at the same thing.  
“Can we hug? I would like a hug…” I stood, arms open. The look of horror she gave me made my arms melt to my sides. I turned around, embarrassed. “Sorry. I presumed.” I sank back on to the couch, snuggled into one of the corners, pulled my legs back up to my chest to hug myself. I was proud I didn’t cry.  
Dakatar stammered, but said nothing sensible. Clearing her throat, she sat on the floor with her back to the couch at the opposite end from me. I took some comfort from her confusion, from knowing she wanted to give me something, but not knowing what.   
“I know,” she started, “that is a very ordinary thing for you, for humans. We, I don’t like to be close like that. It involves sharing breath and sharing scent. It is more...involved than the moment of comfort you are looking for. Ask me for something else, and I will try to provide.” She turned her head and looked at me with a mix of real generosity and breath-held concern that I again would ask for too much.  
“Can I ask you a question?”  
“Yes.”  
“You’ve mentioned smell a lot...smelling the Force, which doesn’t seem possible, smelling me, which seems intimate and weird...what is that about?”  
She exhaled, perhaps the question was not too out of bounds. “I have a better sense of smell than you do. That is all.”  
“But the Force?”  
“It is a saying, not literal.” Dakatar considered, then stopped. I let my head drop to my knees and let the silence settle heavily on me. Then she broke it.  
“Ask another. Another question.”  
I lifted my head. She’d turned to face me, leaned casually on the couch with her arm extended towards me. “I know you have an uncounted number in your mind, Arsjami. Ask me.”  
I swallowed hard, but let my own curiosity crawl out from under the crush of everything else.  
“What do you know about the Force?”  
She shrugged. “In school, we are taught that we all have our own force, our own life’s flame. We nourish it or we smother it, depending on what we do. As children, we are tested to see if we are Force Sensitive. Such children are taken away for training. But even those of us who are not selected for training, may have a little talent. If we are able, we learn to feel our own flame through meditation and guided movements, forms. When I feel as you do now, out of balance, that is what I do. Our way is in some ways similar to the Big Force that Jedi and the Republic used to be about. In many ways, it is different.”  
“As above, so below,” I said, nodding.  
She nodded, then laughed, “Well we would say As the Flame, so the Smoke. The Jedi’s Force is the “smoke” created from the flame of all the beings in the galaxy.”  
“That implies that this individual force is more important. That it is the Truth. What the Jedi were chasing was an illusion, an after effect.” She blinked at me, as if that was utterly obvious. I chuckled. “I wish I was as sure of anything as you are of your cultural superiority, Dakatar.”  
“I do not believe I am superior to you, Arsjami. But yes, my culture is better. Don’t all beings believe that to be so?”  
“As I studied in school, yes…”  
“But you do not believe so?”  
“Oh, I think there are somethings yes, we are better at.”  
“Such as?”  
“We hug.” I teased with a smile. She smiled back.  
“No, you hug strangers. We hug people we truly feel something for. One day, I will show you the difference.”  
“Will it be worth the wait?”  
Her teasing smile grew broad and radiant. “When I hug you, and our noses touch and we share our scent, together, and breathe. Together.” she touched her tongue to her teeth, half closed her eyes and inhaled. One long, strong, vital breath. Something in me melted. “Yes,” she said, eyes still closed. “It is worth the wait.”  
I closed my eyes too, head down on my knees. I listened to her breathing, found my own rhythm matching hers. This silence was not heavy or empty, it was filled and light. Behind my eyes, I could see her flame, the pulse of the Force, feel the emotional weight of her lifetime, and barely, just barely, I could smell something.  
She cleared her throat and moved away, leaving me on the couch in my own meditation.  
Later, I rose stretching from the couch, wondering where Dakatar had gone. As I was about to call for her, She came down the stairs with her pack. She’d washed her face and neatened her hair. Tight, clean, ready.  
“We must find something to get us out of here,” she announced. “If we have to walk all the way back…”  
“I remembered, while,” I pointed at the couch, not knowing what to call it. “I remembered there are back tunnels. Folks used to store all kinds of things there, like bikes and small speeders.”  
Out through the back door we went. There was a mudroom under the stairs, for storing coats and extra things. This one was full of rotten foods and boots. It was plenty large enough for a speeder-bike. That was promising. Through another door, we entered the back access tunnel. It was larger than I’d remembered, not low or close. Two could comfortably pass each other, even laden with groceries.   
“How far does it go?” she asked.  
“Don’t know. Each house should have access to it, like this one. Tunnel should curve around the courtyard, with exits on both ends, I think?”  
“Alright. You stay here, I’m for the near end to the right. Keep the light held high.”  
I did as I was told. She came loping back, shaking her head.  
“Only one more house that way, and the door is locked. Let’s go.”  
We headed down the tunnel. Tried the neighbor’s door, to no luck. After the 2nd door, I started to doubt, it was impossibly dark beyond the circle of the lantern. What could be back here? Then…  
“Do you see a light there?” I pointed ahead.  
Dakatar put her finger to her lips, then doused our lantern. The thought of having to run down this hall in the dark to find the house filled me with terror. As my eyes adjusted to what I thought was complete darkness, it wasn’t. The light I’d seen turned out to be brighter than I’d expected. We came around a corner, me behind her, to a closed door. She stepped to it, listened, then pushed it open. Both of us surprised by what we saw.  
It was a garage.  
There were 3 other doors, placed symmetrically to ours, which must have led off to other courts in the area. The light came from above, a skylight. The sound of the wind was vicious, but it scoured the sand from the transparent metal and lit up the entire room. A Room with stalls, one for each house, and in some of the stalls were obvious parts of speeder-bikes.  
“Thank the Mother!”  
“And you said you couldn’t find a speeder bike!” she handed me the lantern happily, walked the garage, uncovering bits and pieces until she found one. A whole bike.   
“It needs repairs, I can see why it was left behind. There are enough parts in here, I can get this running.”  
“Will it do?  
“Oh Arsjami, it will do.”  
That was a good time, sitting in the garage, listening to Dakatar hum to herself as she built us a ride out of Oz’ka Moot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had fun playing with alternative descriptions of the Force in this one. The Jedi act like they have a monopoly on the stuff, but do they? really?


	5. I Hate Sand, It Gets Everywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroines have their first run in with Imperial Troopers and Arsjami shows she does have some skills.

True enough, the wind slowed overnight. Dakatar woke me just before dawn. 

Leaving Porti’s home for the 2nd time for the last time was hard. My happy memories of our time together crowded round by thoughts of what had become of him and his family after. Where was he? Was he happy? Had he found a woman to carry forward with? I was glad we weren’t together, but sad that we weren't together. It doesn’t make much sense, really. The hidden Ashla made it better, somehow. I would save some piece of his family, wherever he had ended up. Whether he still believed at all. I locked up the house the best I could, barricading the broken door and locking the tunnel behind us.

We pulled and pushed the speeder-bike down the long tunnel to the main street. 

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked, wrapping my cloak around my body and pinning it across my face.

Dakatar fixed my datapad to the dashboard, so she could keep watch of the direction we were heading. 

“The plan is simple, if not easy,” she said. “If we go up to the plateau, the wind will do us foul. According to the map, there’s a secondary canyon this way. If we go down this side, using city streets, we can connect to the secondary canyon. Then we head up it. It splits the main plateau in two.” She lashed up the side car with our bags and the cache of relics. “We do this right and we should come within a short distance of the spaceport. Then up the cliff and across the plateau. We will still have to face the wind. If we’re favored, with the storm ebbing, we will make it across.” She stopped and reviewed her work. Shrugged. “If we fail and the speeder gives way in the sand, the walk across the plateau at that point will be shorter than snaking through town. Through a town full of people who see us as an easy target.”

She appraised me. “You look every bit the explorer. Ready? We’ll be on this thing for a while.”

“Ready to get back to The Caiti. I could use a shower.”

“All true. You’re starting to smell like …” she trailed off, perhaps in response to my slowly widening eyes. “Never mind. Let’s go. Hold tight to me.”

“Are you sure?” I hesitated as she sat on the bike. She looked at me over her shoulder. Her sneered smile wasn’t as coarse as it had once been.

“You have my permission. If it Is comfortable for you.”

I nodded. “Alright then, as I have permission.”

I sat behind her on the seat, my legs against hers, my arms around her waist. She torqued the ride to life and we pulled out into the market, the street, then off down the canyon. The ends of the city moved past us in a blur, shorter and shorter buildings, progressively more shabby but also less abused. Either the Imperials or the scavengers hadn't made it out this far. Or else the density of people and goods was too small to make such a long trip worth it. I’m sure I saw residents digging out of the storm. We didn’t stop and they gave us no reason to.

We cut the corner easily and sped up the secondary canyon. I think I slept, dozed against Dakatar’s back, her dual hearts beating in my ear.

After about an hour, we pulled up at the base of the cliff. The storm was fully gone now, the sky pale blue, the sun moving smoothly up into the sky. We dismounted, stretched our legs — mine had gone numb — relieved ourselves and had a ration bar.

“Now,” she said looking up the cliff, “is the challenge.”

We had to climb. In most places there were cliff-cut stairs, this had been a known access point in the past. Where there were no stairs, we scrambled over the rocks and boulders. I went first, with her behind, with a tether on the speeder bike. It was too steep to ride, but the repulsors on the bike made directing it up the cliff possible. The climb took what was left of the morning. At the top of the cliff, I stopped, looked across the sunbaked plateau with a sudden dread.

“Should we wait until nightfall? When it won’t be as hot?”

She shook her head, “the wind is worse at night.”

“How do you know that?”

“I read the datapad, Professor. Plus, we don’t want to lose another day here. We go now.”

“The sun is intense.”

“Surely. That’s why you’re wearing a hat. Get on.”

The sun was brutal, however, it did keep the wind down. We had to stop twice to cool the speeder engine by pouring water across it. Just as the sun was starting down towards afternoon, the smudge of the spaceport heat-shimmered into view. Unfortunately, there were other shapes there as well. Another ship.

“It's imperial.”

I cursed.

“Exactly.” Dakatar put down her scope and took a deep breath, exhaling through her nose. “From what I can see, it is a troop transport, so that’s…a dozen or more Troopers. I can’t shoot through that many alone.”

She stowed the scope, looking over the goods in the bike. “Maybe we do retreat, come around under darkness…”

“Or we just stroll up, say good day officers, and get on the Caiti and fly away. This isn’t a restricted planet. There’s no law against us being here.”

“Unless they recognize you or the ship as a rebel craft.”

“If they recognize the ship, we’re already done in and they’re combing the canyon for us now. They won’t recognize me, if I don’t show them my face.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. There was a sect here that had face covering as part of their observance. Used to get past the Imps all the time. We tell them the truth, mostly. I’m from here, came back for my mother’s bones, now we just want to get back out to …”

“Axryl station, that’s nearby, back the way we came.”

“Axryl station, to continue our…

“Ship repair business.”

“Sure. I’ll just need to fix you up a face covering.”

Dakatar made a face, but submitted to me pinning and tucking her cloak up around her head and face. It hid her horns and most of her tattoo, if not her striking orange eyes. 

“Do you have a mirror?” I asked.

“I do.” 

“Well, can I borrow it, Dakatar? To check the look?”

She retrieved it from the pack. 

“Somehow, veiling my face always makes me feel safer,” I said. The dingy tan fabric wrapped over my head and nose made my eyes look wide and bright in my brown face.

“One can hide. It is also good for the eyes.”

I frowned, “good for the eyes?”

She looked at me and proceeded to blink her eyes wide and beautiful, before narrowing them and menacing me. It took effort to stand my ground. 

“Oh, you mean they make the eyes look good.”

“Yes. That. If this were a better color though...” she commented, reaching for the mirror.

“We’ll never pass for sisters,” I handed her the mirror. “But at least we’re a matched set.”

Dakatar lingered a minute over the mirror, adjusting the exact angle of the fabric, longer than I expected, before returning the mirror to her pack.

“What if you’re not able to talk your way through this, Arsjami?” she asked, in a practical tone that made me swallow my instantaneous snide response.

“We’ll be close enough to make a run for it. We can do this.”

“I don't like it, but, I’ll trust you to exceed my expectations,” she said. If she smiled, I couldn’t see it. For my own comfort, I pretended it was a joke. As she repacked the luggage to hide the box more carefully, I took a moment and knelt in the sand. Focusing   
on the light behind my eyes, I shut out the sounds, the heat, heard only my heart beating. If I was going to bluff us past these troopers, I would need every advantage. I just hoped I could connect to my Gift and hold it long enough to make it to the Troopers. I summoned up the most pleasant, agreeable feeling in my belly, imagined a trooper saying “yes yes, please do!” behind their white helmet. It was a funny thought, which made it easier to hold. As we shot across the sand to the checkpoint, I found myself giggling repeatedly as I replayed the scenario in my head.

We rode up to the spaceport with all the casual arrogance of a local, slowing as the two-Trooper patrol approached us. I raised my hand to them and disembarked.

“Officers, didn’t expect to see you there! Safe travels to you. Hope the storm didn’t do you too much harm?”

“Papers please. Who are you and what is your business?” With that, I took that image, the feeling of understanding and accepting and handed it mentally to the officer in front of me. Unsuspecting, he took it without hesitation.

“Oh, me and my mate here came back to collect some family belongings left behind in the…ah…evacuation I should say.” I handed over our fake IDs.

“So you’re from here?”

“Originally officers. Not any more.”

I leaned into my senses, waiting for him to believe or disbelieve. Listening in my heart for his expectation so I could answer his questions before he asked them. As I did so, the one behind stepped forward. It was too late, I couldn’t push them both. The first officer handed the papers back.

“All looks in order,” he admitted after a cursory glance. Perfect. All to plan. Except…

“Collecting family belongings?” said the second officer. I switched my attention to him. I couldn’t influence him but I could tell where he was going and direct the conversation. I just had to stay inline with his feelings. _Skeptical._

“We get a fair number of scavengers out here,” said the first officer, his open and supportive attitude overflowing with extra information.

“Well, not collecting, officer,” I backtracked. “More like to pay our respects. My parents are buried here, you see. In the bottom of the canyon. 20 years dead,” I gestured to the heavens then the ground. “It is traditional that I visit them.”

“So, not collecting family belongings?” repeated the second.

“No sir. We’ve collected nothing at all.” I gestured to the side car. To prove my point, I lifted the corner of the cloth, showing our two backpacks and nothing else.

The first officer handed back our papers. “Didn’t expect to see a Zabrak out here. Your mate you say?” he asked. I’d made him too open, he’d moved into curious. Mother’s breath.

“I said mate, that is our word for partner. Business partner,” I leaned on the word business in my explanation.

“And what’s your business, on Axryl?” The second officer asked. They looked Dakatar up and down. Their helmets usually would have made them inscrutable, but they couldn’t hide their feelings from me. _Afraid. Concerned._ I needed a cover that would meet expectations, explain her size and my voice, but not scare them bad enough to detain us, not give them more questions. Behind me, Dakatar shifted her boot on the hard sand. _Impatient._

“Entertainment, sir. I’m a singer, she…dances.” I gestured humbly at Dakatar. She didn’t flinch, just bobbed her head on cue. They both immediately pulled back at that. I amended. “Acrobatics, rather. Martial acrobatics.”

Both of them relaxed again, that felt normal to them.

“That’s your ship then?” asked the second officer.

“It is. Sort of. A borrowed one, sir. I couldn’t tell you much about it, I’m afraid.”

_Typical._

“You know us artists, don’t have much to our names. If there’s nothing else?” I leaned in, listening close for any doubts. They were convinced. The second officer waved us past. “You’re free to go. Send your transponder codes to the orbiting frigate on your way out. For the records.”

“Thank you sir, have a good day, sir.”

Dakatar dismounted, pushing the speeder-bike along the tarmac. I walked behind. We didn’t dare speak. At the Caiti, we stuffed the bike into the slim space available in storage, and crawled up the hatch as quickly as we could. Sealing it behind us.

“The transponder codes are going to be an issue. But we’ll see what we can do,” she said as we unwrapped ourselves and rushed to the cockpit.

“We don't have dummy codes?”

“We do, but such things are unreliable.”

As we took off, flipping all the switches for a quick quiet take off, “oh, by the way,” she said, “good job with the Imperials. You should have gone with our agreed on story.”

“They weren’t going to buy you as a mechanic. We needed a lie that matched their expectations.”

She snorted, then nodded in agreement. “You’re a good liar.”

I smiled. “Thanks. I think.”


	6. Coded Communications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having outsmarted the troopers on Oz'ka Moot, Arsjami and Dakatar are faced with a new challenge -- getting along. It starts with a secret shared.

It didn’t go smoothly once we were in orbit. 

“Unidentified ship, your transmitted codes are out of date. You have 3 minutes to resubmit or be towed and boarded.” The flat voice intoned over the comms.

“Are you strapped in?” Dakatar asked, not looking back at me.

“Yes,” I said, clicking my harness. My head was pounding. I closed my eyes. The interaction with the troopers had taken some effort. I was glad I only had to get us past one checkpoint.

“Good, we’re about to run for it.”

“Dakatar,” I started, she cut me off.

“You can’t talk your way out of this one, Arsjami. This is a place where it is either the codes or the stars that do our talking. Diktonir protect us.”

Dakatar punched the coordinates for the jump, then swore.

“What? What’s wrong now?”

“I need to re-check the coordinates. There’s been a change in the projected path.”

“Two minutes, unidentified ship,” reminded the Imperial frigate. I couldn’t see them, they were behind us, ready to shoot us down.

She swore again, “Hold on. We’re going as we are.”

With that, she flipped two switches and pulled back her hyperspace lever. The frigate didn’t have the chance to stop us, but we were flying blind. A chance we paid for.

On the other end of the short hop, the stars came back into focus and then, so much more than stars crowded around the ship.

Asteroids.

Dakatar desperately steered away from the crashing rocks we’d suddenly found ourselves among. I held tight to my arm rests and did all I could, which means I prayed. We slalomed left and right, with a sound like rain on the metal skin of the Caiti from the multitude of rocks pelting us. I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see the stones striking the shield just beyond the transparent cockpit. The navigation computer gave a continual update in a calm, inhuman voice. I tuned that out too. Knowing didn’t help. There is no solace in knowing the odds of survival, especially when that number isn’t 100%. We hit something that sent us spiraling, side over side, bouncing left to right and bruising my hips on the arms of the chair. It was a harrowing few minutes, listening to the metal twist and scream while the computer squawked and Dakatar quietly cursed.

As with any rainstorm, it did eventually peter out. The spinning slowed, then stopped. If I’d had any food in my stomach, I’d have lost it then, as we stopped turning and were simply drifting. The storm ended, but it didn’t leave us in silence. The alarms from the computer grew more insistent. A distant hiss of out-gassing. A screeching of metal twisting from inertia. A metallic arhythmic pinging. Dakatar jumped from her seat and went behind me.

“Should I,” I started.

“Stay where you are. The cockpit is an escape pod. I’ll hit the lever if needed.”

She was gone.

Time stretched.

One by one the alarms stopped, the hissing ceased.

Dakatar returned out of breath. She flipped a few switches, ending the flashing lights and the final beeping. Leaned against her chair she seemed to catch her breath. That was when I saw her face and realized how afraid she’d been. Her fear was chilly, unwelcome but not a stranger to her. As quickly as she felt it, the fear passed her by, another near miss in the darkness.

She stuck her hands into her pockets. “The coordinates I’d calculated didn’t hold up — maybe our trajectory wasn’t exact, maybe something on the landing end had changed, a gravity source wobbled. We dropped into an asteroid field. you heard how well that went.”

I just nodded my head and kept looking at her, waiting for her to tell me if I should panic. She didn’t. She did keep explaining.

“We withstood most of the collisions well. We did lose a coupler, maybe some exterior hull. That was the hissing you heard. It is a pretty straight forward fix, I’ve got an extra in storage. However, We won’t be able to make the repair until we land. Until then it is subspace only. No hyperdrive.”

I waited for more, but she didn’t say anything else.

“How long, until we can land?

She shrugged, “we’re pretty far out there in the nowhere. I’ll do the calculations — carefully this time — and see. Five days or more, I’d say.” She reached down, almost touched my hand, which was still vice like on the arm rest. “Nothing to be done about it now. Why don’t you have that shower.” She slipped into her seat and said no more.

It took us three times that long before we were able to limp our way into a spaceport where we could make the repairs.

In the meantime, I reviewed the relics in the box.

“I meant to ask you about that,” Dakatar said when I pulled the Oz’ka Moot Ashla from among the other items. I was sitting on the floor, the items spread out around me as I made notes on my datapad.

“About what?”

“About your research.”

She sat at the table, idly polishing a recurved blade almost the length of my forearm. While she pretended to be engrossed in her task, her eyes never left me. There was an uneasy concern in her motions.

“These are relics of the relationship between all living beings and the Force. A relationship that used to be celebrated, but is now being actively neglected.” I put on my best professorial voice.

“The religion?”

“The Force isn’t a religion. It simply is. What we do about that, some call a religion.”

“You’re a believer then, in the Force?”

I shrugged, “I don’t consider it belief, Dakatar, to embrace the existence of something so obvious. But yes, there is a religion that I follow if that’s what you’re asking me.”

“You learned it from your parents?”

“Somewhat. What they could teach, I learned. I have learned more, in traveling.” I was being cagey, she could tell. She decided on another approach.

“I also have an observance for the Force.“

“I collected that, from our previous conversation. Is it true that Zabrak are strong with it?”

“Some are, some are not. Only some of us turn to the darker side.”

I stopped rolling the item in my hands, a candlestick in the shape of a flame “I didn’t mean anything by that…”

“I took no offense. For some, power is the only goal, sides don’t matter.”

“For some.” She ignored the question I implied.

“And you studied this in school? Or in your travels?

“In school I studied history and colonization, in relation to tools of intercultural exchange, particularly as it relates to patois and traders cants.”

She made a face, pursed lips and wide eyes. I tried again.

“Trade languages, like Basic. Or Huttese. My studies were in how using a traders’ language relates to colonization and settlement of different peoples around the galaxy. Basically, if you don’t speak the local trade language, you won’t settle in that system, regardless of whatever language you speak natively.”

“Ah, I see,” Dakatar responded, as if she really was considering it. “Huttese.”

“Do you speak it?”

“Enough to not get cheated.”

“That’s all Huttese is for, generally speaking.”

“So how does that relate to all this,” She asked, gesturing with the knife point at the pile of stone and pottery around me.

“It doesn’t really, but it does. The Force, and its observation, is its own kind of trade language. It is common to so many of us, it can be used to bring us together. Particularly In the face of a greater threat.”

She went back to her knife, stumped in that line of questions. I decided to be blunt.

“Dakatar, do you want to ask me what’s on your mind? Or we can keep playing Stump the Professor.”

“I have asked you what I wanted to know.”

“Have you? Have you really?” I looked at her defiantly. She rolled her tongue over her teeth, annoyed. “I have been a school teacher most of my life, I know when someone is trying to get the answer out of me without asking.”

“Fine. That statue. These statues. Do you use the Force to find them? Do you have a gift?”

There. A good question, and pointed enough I could answer it honestly without saying everything.

“I have a gift, yes. I don't think I use the Force, it uses me.”

“Spoken like a Jedi.”

“I have no aspirations to that.”

“Fine. Definitely spoken like someone trying to be modest and failing.”

I laughed. “I don’t know that finding lost objects is a gift worth bragging about.”

“So that’s it then? Your Force gift is finding lost items?”

“Sort of. We all have the Force within us, yes?” I asked rhetorically. She answered anyway.

“That is as I was taught, yes,” she responded.

“It flows. Connects. Items we love and handle, eventually we impart to them some sliver of our Force. And it lingers. Particularly if the item had religious significance. Such items want to be used, they do not like to be left idle. They are conduits and they want to be open. So when they are lost, they call out to be found. I can hear that call.”

“All your life, you’ve had this gift?” she asked, fascinated.

“Long enough to have found all of these things, and two boxes more. Both larger.”

“That one.” She pointed to a wooden box, carved on all sides. “What does it say to you?”

“Well,” I picked it up. “I think it is Cerean, but I’m not sure. It once held incense and carbon, tools for lighting a ceremonial flame…”

“No. What does it SAY to you. When it calls.”

I chuckled. “Truly?”

“Truly. I want to know.”

I took the box into my hands, sliding my fingers over the latches to open it. “I can smell the incense burning, hear a distant bell, a call, a summons. This is not a happy occasion, there is loss in this box, in this odor, tears being shed somewhere each time it is opened.”

“It is for funerals then.”

I clicked the box closed and set it aside. I had to physically shake off the mourning feeling that poured out of it, strong enough that it had almost brought tears to my eyes. She noticed. The sudden vulnerable feeling made me sorry for my previous bravado. “Something like that.”

“Can you do this one?” she offered me her knife, handle first.

“I should not. Dakatar, that is not a religious relic.”

“Is it not?” she offered it again. “It is an item, loved and handled. Tell me what it says to you.”

“It is precious to you.”

“And I trust you with it. Take it. Tell me what you see.”

A dare, an attempt to test my limits and my bravery. I carefully took the hilt, let my fingers wrap it one by one. My eyes closed. The knife had not called to me, so I called to it, to see if it answered. It did, immediately.

 _The ship falls away as I hear a roaring like never elsewhere. I smell smoke, not of fire, of a forge, of hot metal and…rock from the center of a planet._

“This weapon,” I intoned, “it is part of a larger one, a zhaboka. It misses its lost parts, loves you. It has cut you before, in this love, you have the scars to prove it. On your arms. You earned it through res’selenoren. Three days of harrowing. it came to you from your mother’s hand. From her mother’s hand. From her mother’s hand. From the place where it was made, before your blood left Iridonia. It has malice, but is content. It is yours. It looks forward to striking the spark for your funeral pyre.” What follows is messy, unspeakably broken, as if it is an event that has not yet made up its mind, not yet set and viewable. 

I peeled my fingers from the hilt. Opened my eyes. Offered her the knife. Our eyes met and the challenge had been satisfied. She had a wonder for me, one I’d had for her from the beginning. Picking it from my palm, she brushed her fingers over my skin. I got another emotion from her, too complex for a word, a hundred things bound together. 

She studied the blade, then me, then put it away.

“That’s a gift alright.”

I took my time before speaking. The rush of connection sometimes made me giddy, sometimes tired, this time, it made me dizzy. I could still smell sparks.

“What’s res’selenoren?” I asked, the words still in my mind.

“A coming of age ceremony. It is where I, yes, was given the zhaboka, of which this only part.”

“What is a zhaboka?”

“Double Bladed staff weapon. Taller than I. Used for…anything I want.”

“Where is the rest?”

“Here. For when I need it.”

She leaned back, considering.

“You are, not at all who I expected you to be, Arsjami.”

I pulled away, suddenly feeling a little too seen. “There you are again with your expectations.”

“Fair enough. You are a different person, when you do that. Among these things that are so much more than things, you become more than just you. I can see now why collecting them is what you do, why retrieving them is worth this trip.” Saying this, she was not who I expected her to be either. Her disdain and cynicism pulled back, and a genuine wondering person stepped forward. What had been a passing desire for her, shifted as I genuinely came to like her.

That was too much. I stood, took the excuse of going to the lav. When I came back out, she was gone to the cockpit, whatever curiosity she held sated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're enjoying the adventure so far!  
> We're really into the meat of them becoming friends and I just adore it.  
> Comments/questions/kudos welcome.


	7. It Surrounds Us and Penetrates Us…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Together chugging slowly through space, our heroines break down some barriers and get to know each other and the Force better.

The days took on a rhythm. I made a habit of eating twice a day, in between those fixed times, I napped, studied and documented my findings. She was always awake when I rose from bed and when I retired. Beginning and ending of each day, she spent in the cockpit. Often, the engines would kick on as she did some course correction. The rest of the day, we were together in the quarters, chatting aimlessly. She didn’t like to play sabacc. Instead she taught me a variation on chance cubes that was fun, even if it involved betting, which I was shit at.  
She kept her spaces and self immaculate, her pants and shirt always fitted and buckled, a dark green curtain pulled across her two bunks. I think she used an oil or cream in the lav, because her skin was always glowing and smooth. In contrast, I always looked half put together. I was clean. However my area was a mess, as I liked it. During most waking hours I studied. The box of items open and spread all over my bunk. Me nearby, touching and measuring, recording details, my hands covered in the dust and soot of distantly remembered places.  
“Arsjami. Arsjami…” Dakatar snapped her fingers before my face, pulling my attention from a past that seemed to go on and on. I murmured, parted my lips and felt them gummed together. “Arsjami, you haven’t moved in hours. It is time for dinner. Arsjami…” she snapped her fingers again, dragging me out of an elaborate, sweet dream. I looked up at her, my neck stiff, my legs asleep where they were folded underneath me.  
“Dakatar…hours?”  
“The whole day, to be honest. I know you said I shouldn’t disturb you, but…” knelt in front of me, her concern was obvious, but there was a guilt about it too. Looking around the quarters, I had a flash of anger at her for having pulled me back.  
“It was a really good…vision,” I croaked and cleared my throat.  
“I’m sorry. I was concerned,” if her apology didn’t sate my urge to yell, the smell of dinner, already pulled and on the table did. “You should eat. Come on professor.” She stood, pointed at the table. “It doesn’t pay to indulge too deeply in visions,” she cautioned.  
“How do you know?” I replied, standing, my knees popping in protest.  
She looked at me with a knowing smile. “Remember Diktonir? His third wife, Kivum had the gift of sight. She got lost in a vision and died of starvation.”  
“Is that true, or just a story?”  
Dakatar shrugged.  
I was about to protest, until I saw the sweet rounded grains mixed with tubers on my plate. I could smell the spices and my stomach turned. “Maybe you’re right.”  
I washed up, joined her at the table.  
“You have been spending more and more time away like that. It is not wise.” She advised over her cubed meat. There was no lecture in her voice, only genuine concern.  
“You care! I’m touched.” I said.  
Her face shifted. “I was not expecting sarcasm. You asked me to care.”  
“I know, sorry, I was joking. Poorly.” I took a few bites, enough to quiet my stomach. “There isn’t much else to do out here.” A few more bites. “Unless…Remember in Oz’ka Moot you said you knew of ways to touch your, your inner force?”  
“My flame, yes.”  
“Could you teach me? Anything? Unless it is a secret, or special learning of course. It would pass the time. Besides, I’d be grateful for the lessons.”  
She made a noncommittal noise. “I could. There are some sacred forms, which we can work around.” Dakatar scrunched up her face. “I will think about it. Much of what I know is ...physical. What you do with your mind, that is beyond me. It can be quite effective in centering and focusing, I will say that, when faithfully practiced. I don't know that such is a training you’d like.”  
“I think it's exactly the kind of training I would like. Centering and focusing aren’t exactly easy.”  
“No, they are not.”  
She let the conversation fade and I did too. Spending what had become a comfortable silence reviewing my vision. It was before I turned in for bed when she spoke again.  
“I am not much of a teacher. That is not my skill. But I can show you some of what I know. I hope it will be helpful to you.”  
“That is, Dakatar, thank you so much!” I stifled my automatic urge to reach for her in thanks. The hesitation made me stumble over my words. “Is there there something?, anything I can do to repay you?”  
She made a face. “The teaching is always a gift. Freely given. Besides, we both believe in the Force. And in my learnings, this kind of opportunity is no coincidence.”  
I grinned, nodded emphatically. “From Mother’s Mouth, you’re right.”  
“You will tell me of this...Mother? Is she like Diktonir?”  
“I will gladly tell you, but no, she is not like Diktonir. There are no ashes or pyres.”  
Dakatar pursed her lips, as if she doubted me, but said nothing else about it. “We will start tomorrow before dinner. It is best before a meal. After, and the exertion and the food don’t go well together.”  
“How much exertion will we get in this little space?”  
She grinned, all teeth, a little malice.

***

We started the next day, an hour before dinner. It was hard right from the beginning. Dakatar’s breathing practice relied on an ability to hold my breath that I couldn’t emulate. I could hold the pose and center my mind, so that was good for the first few days. Then the body movements came in, how to move your feet, hold your hands. She gave me two short rods to hold, to focus my hands around. She wielded two double bladed knives in her practice, using them to direct her strikes and lead her movements. At the end of each practice, when I was winded, she would complete the forms at her speed. Wickedly fast and fluid. Beautiful swirls of her body, kicks to the ceiling, swipes to the ground, slashes of her blades forward and back. The only sound the knife slicing through the air and the low hiss of her breath, which seemed to never waiver.  
“That is amazing. You are…amazing.” I observed, unthinking. She looked at me, but said nothing about it. I smiled inside, knowing we were getting closer. I changed the subject, so as not to push too hard.  
“How long have you been doing this?”  
“All my life.”  
“Your mother taught you?”  
“Among many other elders. There is much I don’t know.  
“And it is to focus?”  
“I use the forms to focus, yes. Once you can focus through the forms, you can do it without them. It makes for an effective warrior, in every sense. There’s a reason Zabraks are sought after in such things.”  
“I guess that is why you’re here?”  
“Partially. I’m also a damn good pilot.  
“We survived a bad jump through an asteroid field. I’d say you’re a damn fine pilot too.”  
She smiled openly at the compliment.  
“Dinner time,” I said, ending the conversation before she had a chance to feel embarrassed.  
The next day, she had us start face to face.  
“Now, a little combat.”  
I nodded emphatically, “I can do this,” I proclaimed.  
“Probably not, but you can try.”  
“No, I’m ready. What’s the drill?”  
“You’re going to do the forms I’ve taught you, and I’ll do their opposites. So you can see them in action. Ready?”  
Step by step, I went through the five forms was learning, and she did a different five. They intertwined together like a dance. Step into the space she left, raise my hand to block her next move, kick to the knee to block the incoming kick. All only a few inches from each other, never touching. That was what my mind was set on, not getting too close, but staying close enough to feel _present._ We repeated it, over and over, slightly faster each time. I could feel my own Force energy rising, and feel hers, radiating with her breath.  
“Faster?”  
“Yes. Again.”  
That time, I hit her. I lost control of my arm, was so enamored by our movements together that I slipped and slapped her.  
“Mother help me,” I yelped, jumped back out of arms’ reach. “I’m so sorry!”  
She grinned broadly, licked her lip where the small dot of blood was visible, where her lip had struck her teeth.  
“Shu fej sharee, devsta’ka?” She exclaimed, with an appreciative nod.  
“I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, Dakatar,” I held both hands out. Then suddenly curious, I asked: “What did you call me?”  
“No, that’s good. I didn’t... I said...mostly...“who are you, dangerous one?” You surprise me with your understanding. Better than I thought. You’re ready for more now.”  
We started a new set of forms, which took another few days to review. I asked for more and more. We practiced for as long as I could keep up. It felt so good to be close to someone, even if we weren’t actually touching. We were engaged together, a push and pull that fed me more than I’d expected. Plus it was quickly obvious to me that I could feel the Force better now, could almost _see_ it coming off of the relics. This was a way of accessing my gift I’d always searched for. I didn’t want to stop. Dakatar’s approval made it even sweeter. I made it my goal to strike her at least once a day.  
“I know you’re trying to hit me,” she cautioned.  
“Yes, isn’t that the point of fighting?”  
“We’re not fighting. This is a path of meditation. Blows to hurt are a different path.”  
“But I’m getting pretty good at both paths.”  
“One cannot walk two paths at once.”  
“There you go again, sounding like a Jedi.”  
She feigned a strike and I dodged it, earning another appreciative look from her.  
“You think you’re good. You’ve only just started.”  
“I’m the one with the gift. Try me.” I teased, dodging and sliding as she threw blow after blow. I circled her, grinning, the energy high. She was smiling too, passionately so. I could feel something else growing between us. Maybe this, maybe sweating and playing in this small space…  
Then she hit me. Hard. In the face. And I hit the floor like a sack of wet sand.  
Standing over me, victorious, her grin now huge and menacing. “Got you.”  
Knowing it was childish, I locked myself in the lav and cried.

***

“Why are you angry with me?” Dakatar asked over dinner.  
“You hit me.”  
“We were sparring. I thought you wanted me to hit you.”  
“Not like that, Dakatar. Look at me,” I pointed to my face, the corner of my mouth swollen and tender. At the blank look on her face, I shook it off. “Never mind.”  
“You’re sulking because I beat you, Arsjami.”  
“I said, never mind.”  
“You’ve learned a lesson, I think.”  
“You know what? Fuck you, Dakatar. Entirely. To the Deep Core and back.” I stood from the table and retreated to my bunk, pulling the privacy shield up behind me.  
She wasn't wrong, but I also wasn’t ready to deal with her smug attitude. Trying to make sense of what was going on between us tied my stomach in a knot. I wanted to go home, to some home quiet and firm, with water and light and dirt. This life, in the indifferent darkness trapped with a stranger was not for me.  
I waited until she was not in the room to use the lav, expecting to quickly then again return to my bunk. When I came out, she was there. Hands in her pockets, shoulders sagged, face inscrutable. I didn’t greet her, headed to the appliances for a quick meal.  
“Arsjami, can we talk?” I turned my back to her, as she had to me many times before. She continued anyway, “Are we not friends? I hope in my foolishness, I haven’t ended our challenge so soon.”  
I looked over my shoulder at her, “friends?” I replied. “Seriously?”  
“Wasn’t that what we were becoming? And then I…I forgot that you are not me, or a Zabrak at all. I am sorry.” She pulled her hands from her pockets, palms up as if offering me something physical. I reached for her hand by reflex, stopping only at the last. I withdrew my hand.  
“I accept your apology.” I retreated to the table, to suck soup loudly from the bowl. “But I don’t understand what happened. Why you’d…”  
“We were sparring, and to my mind,” she stumbled over the words, “you wanted to fight. So I thought or rather I stopped thinking. I should not have violated your boundary like that. I should have asked.” She sighed, sitting across from me. Her regret was palpable, which softened my anger considerably.  
“I just wanted to play. To be close to you,” I explained, my voice easing. “I should have asked you too, before. I am sorry.” Her eyes flicked up to mine and then down again with that subtle smile of hers.  
“That is how we play, where I’m from.” She folded her hands on the table. “I have the scars to prove it.” She worked her jaw around, chewing a thought, trying her own honesty. I leaned back in my mind, wanting so much whatever truth this was, but not wanting to pull it out of her. Thank the Mother, she gave it to me.  
“I get carried away,” She admitted, her voice softer than usual. “It is a…flaw.” She looked at me, to make sure I was listening. Then back down. “I want very much to be a part of this Rebellion. To make the galaxy a safer place. I am not well suited for the Rebellion itself. Captain Jarcu has…” she stopped. Took a breath, stated again, “if I am unable to complete this task, then I think the Captain will ask me to go. Or send me off to the Outer Rim to watch probe droids for the rest of the war.”  
“Is that not what you want, Dakatar? You have made every indication that alone is what you wanted to be.”  
“No, Arsjami, I do not want to be alone in the black,” She tipped her head slightly, towards me. “I don’t want to be out here with just anyone.”  
“Do you have other friends, Dakatar, other Zabrak you could travel and work with?” I probed, wanting to get to the bottom of whatever it was she was after.  
“A few. It isn’t a Zabrak thing…” she made a gesture with her fingers when she said “Zabrak thing”. “I am too much for them too, sometimes. Or they are too much for me. It is just me. I am not…”  
“Stop,” I interjected firmly, slapped my hand flat on the table. “Stop. Look at me.” She raised her eyes, perfectly framed by her dark thick lashes. “Look. I was foolish too. You were right before. We were sparring and when I tried to walk the path of the warrior, I should have been prepared to get hurt. That was my fault. You, you are not too much. You’re just right. Complicated and distant and irritating, but just right. This Rebellion Is lucky to have you. And I’m glad to have met you.”  
“Thank you, for saying so.”  
“You’re welcome,” I exhaled, sagging into the cushions.  
“I have tried to be less distant with you. These last many days.”  
“I noticed,” I sipped my soup.  
“I have noticed also that you,” she stopped, considered.  
“Please tell me. What have you noticed?”  
She shifted in her seat, leaned towards me as if telling a secret — not that there was anyone else to hear us. “We talked about smells before. And I have noticed that, well, your smell tells me that I am attractive, to you.” She looked me directly in the face and dared me to deny it. Under her gaze, large and bright, I felt a tingling, in the back of my knees, up my thighs.  
“Mother bless me, yes.” I breathed out the truth, curved my lips into a small smile. “I find you quite attractive.”  
She moved her hand forward across the table, and I reached to meet hers, stopping just a finger’s width away.  
“I don’t know what to say about that.”  
“Well, you start by telling me if you’re attracted to me,” I hinted, then quickly added, “if you are not, you should say so now, so I can set my expectations properly.”  
“I want to be your friend, Arsjami. To come to know your mind.” She chewed her lip but didn’t look away, didn’t move her hand closer to mine. “Only then will such feelings make themselves plain to me.”  
“That is fair. We all burn at different rates.”  
“We do. I should say, once kindled, I burn quite hot.”  
I chuckled. “I would hope so. A fire, well built, burns long and best. Warms you to the core.”  
“I have burned others.”  
I shrugged off her warning, “I will be careful.”  
She smiled, perhaps even glowed. I smiled too.  
“It is good, feels good, to say it to you.”  
Dakatar blinked shyly, looking down at our hands, so close together. “I don’t, ah, it is good to hear.”  
I waited, wondering what she would do next. The coiled feeling of restraint was powerful and frustrating in equal measure.  
“May I,” she said after what seemed like an hour, but was only a few breaths of peace, “touch your hand?”  
That wasn’t what I’d expected, which highlighted the fact that I had no idea what was going to happen next, next day, next week, next with her. I nodded, lips parted, gaze bold on her face. She returned my look, then hid her eyes from me with a downward tilt of her head, the glowing grin still playing over her lips and cheeks. I turned my hand palm up and invited her touch. Reaching forward just that much, she brushed her fingers over the palm of my hand and down to my fingertips. Her fingers were warm, nails pleasantly sharp. The touch passed a shock up my wrist. I felt my heart literally throb in my chest and smelled something sweet.  
I didn’t know I’d closed my eyes until I had to open them, at the sound of her getting up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of things start in this chapter: Force stuff. Burn stuff. The first of my love for Ul'Zabrak. Just more.  
> BTW, I have a *thing* for fictional languages, so from here on out I use a liberal sprinkling of Ul'Zabrak -- Old Zabrak -- that I based on some old Iridonian RP resources for the Star Wars: The Old Republic RPG community. 100% not mine and 100% cool.
> 
> Let me know what you think with your comments and kudos!


	8. Leaning In (on a trope)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally docked, Arsjami and Dakatar engage in some R&R. Bath time!

After more than 14 days of subspace, we arrived at Grot 3 station in the Gratinr system. It was an unaligned station on a subsidiary hyperspace lane. It orbited a stable star. There was a wait for docking clearance, but otherwise no issues getting in, docked up, and scheduled for repairs. We had 4 days of waiting on our hands before they could get to us.

“What shall we do?” I asked eagerly, looking at the station map I’d downloaded to my datapad. “Can I get a massage?”

“Arsjami. That sounds horrific.”

“They are quite relaxing, a good Twi’lek massage.”

“Spare me. Besides, unless you brought credits with you,” she pointed to the price range, “I can’t cover that.”

“Oh. Well. I guess I’ll settle for a few well cooked fresh meals. And maybe a holovid show.”

Dakatar shrugged. “A fresh meal sounds good. And a drink. And maybe...”

We said in unison, “a bath.”  
****

Grot 3 had two bathhouses. We headed to the nearest one. I grabbed my few things -- a change of clothes, a tube of soap, a hair brush -- and expected Dakatar to already be waiting outside. She was not. In fact, I waited a good few minutes for her to finally drop down the hatch, a fully packed satchel in her hand.

“What’s all that then?” I asked, pointing at the bag.

“Toiletries,” she answered, “obviously.”

“Sure, obviously. I’m just surprised.”

“That what?”

“At the size of the pack, Dakatar!” I finally started laughing, in part at the way her hand gripped the pack possessively, as if I were going to pull it away. “How much do you have in there?”

She shrugged, started to walk away. “I am particular about my products, Arsjami. As any one should be.” She strode away so I had to jog to keep up.

The nearest bath house was, of course, called The Mon Cala. It was at the side of a busy thoroughfare, with a cafe to one side and a cantina to the other. Outfront, a few beings lounged. Dakatar’s pace slowed. She dropped her eyes to me. “If this is a pleasure house…”

“I don’t know,” I responded, “according to the datapad, it has baths for rent. What difference does it make if other people choose to do other kinds of business there?” I barely avoided brushing past her to get to the door.

It was neither a Mon Calamari nor a Quarren at the counter, which did give me pause. There was a pleasant odor of incense, however, and a nice pile of clean towels on the counter. Behind the counter was a service droid. Leaned against the counter with a forced casualness was a Pyke, their too small face and too large eyes striking on first glance.

“Bright Risings,” I greeted them both. “We’d like to rent a private bath.”

“Very good,” said the droid, pointing to the prices on the counter. “Which would you like.”

The Pyke, their features narrowing even more, looked up slowly. “A little get away, girls?” they drawled.

“Yes,” I answered with a smile. “Can only take so many chemical showers,” I laughed.

“Two, private, baths.” Dakatar added over my shoulder, her own finger landing on the proper item. 

“Oh, lover’s spat then?” the Pyke continued, laughing with me, magenta colored eyes gleaming.

Before I could say anything, Dakatar spoke to the droid. “I have a few questions.”

“Of course, Zabrak,” the droid’s voice flat.

“How private are the baths? And how large?”

The droid rattled off all kinds of numbers. I chatted with the Pyke. It had been weeks since my last conversation with another sentient being.

“How often are they cleaned? And by whom?”

“Do you live here on the station then?” I asked the Pyke. They laughed.

“As long as business is good, yes.”

“And is business good?”

“They are cleaned by droids, Zabrak. Sonic cleaning. Every 3rd day.”

“Sweatboxes? Saunas? Are those private too?”

“Well, if you’re not together, could I interest you in some company?”

“Depends. What kind of company?”

“Saunas aren’t private, but you can reserve it all by paying for 5 spaces…”

“No, I am kidding. Not this time, friend…”

“That’s...unacceptable.” Dakatar cleared her throat and rapped her knuckles on the counter. “We’re leaving.” She’d turned heel and headed to the door before I realized it, before the Pyke could offer me other   
entertainments.

Again, I jogged to catch up.

“What...the place seemed fine?”

“That Pyke was about to sell you some spice, Arsjami. That place wasn’t fine.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to buy any!” I responded defensively. “Couldn’t afford it.”

She cut her eyes at me.

“I’m kidding! Dakatar! I don’t do spice. Makes my head hurt.” I pantomimed a headache, which she ignored.

“Where is the other place?” she asked, slowing enough for me to pull out the datapad and check.

“Other end of the station. Was that place really that bad?”

“The droid said only clean once every 3 days, which means they really only clean once every 6 days. It smelled of aging seaweed and…” the face she made was indescribable. “I won’t say what else. Plus, the Pyke.   
Yes, it was that bad.”

I sighed. “And you call me a princess.”

“I get a bath in a tub with a sauna once in a hundred stops. It’ll be good, or I won’t bother.” She took the next left and we went further into the station.

At the end of a quiet corridor, we came to The Depths of Manaan. There was no one outside, but the door was open. I paused at the doorway in the breath of fresh air that washed over me. I couldn’t help but smile. Dakatar had already walked in.

The room was brightly lit, covered in white tile. It smelled salty and astringent. Dakatar stepped to the counter to speak to the pale-skinned human behind the counter.

“Oen’dhia, Zabrak. Welcome to The Depths of Manaan. How may I help you?”

“We’d like two private baths. With private saunas and dressing rooms. How much?”

“We have a special on 2 appointments. You are in on a ship? I will give you this price,” they indicated a price on the list.

I heard, distantly, what might be music. Then I realized it was just running water, hitting a series of metallic plates in the corner. 

“How often are your baths cleaned?”

“After every use, Zabrak. As is proper.”

Dakatar almost sighed with happiness. “And the saunas?”

“I have a crew that comes in nightly. But as we don’t allow any...socializing...in our saunas, they stay pretty clean.”

As we stood there, a pair of Zabrak came out of the inner rooms. They paused to look at Dakatar, as if to see if they knew each other. They nodded, exchanged a greeting. Dakatar had her credits on the counter before the pair were three steps out of the door.  
***

The Depths of Manaan was a nice place. Quiet. Clean. The pleasant ringing of water running over chimes filled every room. The bathtub was deep and the water hot and mineral-tinged. The sauna was more like a cave than the wooden ones I was used to, but it was relaxing nonetheless. My skin was used to being neglected, I often forgot to lotion it as well as I should in the rush to get out of the lav. The sauna was a welcome rejuvenation regime. For a few credits more, I got a haircut. Not great and they didn’t have any proper oil. Even still, I was done before Dakatar. I knocked on the door of her private dressing room.

“Dakatar, are you in there?”

“I am. Do you need something?”

“I’m just...finished. Can I come in? Keep you company?”

“You mean you want me to keep you company,” she said flatly.

I cleared my throat. “Well enough. I’ll leave you to it.”

The door unlocked from her side. “Come in, Arsjami. Can’t have you wandering off alone.”

Inside the dressing room, she was wearing her undershirt and pants, hair down. I suddenly regretted the intrusion and said as much.

“If you were intruding, I wouldn't have let you in,” she responded. I sat against the back wall and watched her work at rubbing a thick cream up and down her arms. Her tattoo was visible down her right arm to the wrist, but not on the left.

“That smells nice,” I said. “Like, like grass? Does that make sense?”

“It is made from the fat of a grazer on my home planet. So yes.” She looked at me in the mirror.

“You cut your hair?”

“They trimmed it for me.”

She gestured me to the mirror. I went. In the brighter light, she looked appraisingly at my scalp. “What?” I asked, touching the short coils, “is it not even?”

“It is even. However…” she pursed her lips with disapproval. “Did they not oil it for you?”

“They didn’t have anything suitable. It was all perfumey or gunky.” I made a face.

“Well now it is flat. Your hair should shine, I would think.”

I nodded. “Yes, well…” Before I could form a full excuse, say it wasn’t important, Dakatar dug into her pack and pulled out a vial. 

“Just that much,” she indicated a small circle in her palm. “Should be enough.” I was surprised again, but knew better than to question it.

“Thank you,” I murmured, uncorking it and pouring it into my palm as directed.

Dakatar, skin moisturized and shining warmly, moved to her hair. I slowed down so I would have reason to stand nearby and watch as she brushed it smooth and black. The slight bounce of it was wonderfully soft   
next to the strong cut of her cheeks, the deep lines of her facial marks. And the smell as she oiled it. Sweet but not fruity. She hummed to herself. I eased into the comfort of her ritual and shared it, oiling my own hair and rocking just a bit, back to front. She pretended not to notice.

“Do you…” I asked hesitantly. “My feet are very dry. Do you have anything?”

She nodded, handed me another cream. “You have to warm it between your palms to get soft, but that should be more than good for you.”

“Your skin is like mine,” I commented, sitting down and taking off my boots and socks to smooth the thick cream over my dry heels. It felt so good I’m sure I moaned.

“In what way? Dry? Brown?”

“Both.”

“My skin is thicker than yours.”

“I don’t know, I take criticism pretty well.” I joked. She gifted me a smile as if it were funny.

“Where your people are from, is it dry?”

“No, but it is hot.”

“We have that in common then.”

Oiling completed, she pulled her hair up into a ponytail and looked closely at her face. She pulled out a whole kit of tweezers and blades and proceeded to carefully groom her eyebrows and lashes.

“Oh…” I exhaled slowly.

“What? What now, Arsjami?”

“I’m sorry. I thought…I feel so stupid now, but I thought your eyebrows grew that way.” Looking at me in the mirror, she lifted her manicured right eyebrow at me. I blushed. She laughed.

“Do people not groom themselves where you come from?”

“They do! I just...I don’t...it is not a practice I ever invested in. Not at this level of detail,” I gestured my arm across the counter full of products and tools.

“I do not mean this cruelly, but consider investing. Anything can be faced with a properly collected brow.” Her smile was genuine, warm, all hesitation gone. We continued chatting, her offering me small tips on this or that as she finished up. It was clear she didn’t do this often, so I gave her all the time she needed as she lavished attention on each pore of skin and strand of hair. It was, I think, her only luxury. By the end, I still had little interest in investing in it for myself, but I committed to giving her this time whenever I was able. 

After, we ate at a local spot called the Green Star, recommended by another Zabrak and human couple that we passed on the way out. The Green Star served both freshly slaughtered meat and aged pickled vegetables, all brought up every other day from the nearby planet. With a pitcher of ale between us, we relaxed, laughed. She had many brothers and sisters, across various parental combinations. Serial monogamy was the habit on her colony world. I told her about my brother, Raj, who had left the family land to run a cantina in the nearby town. My incredibly boring and doting parents.

“Why don’t you own a droid, Dakatar?” I asked, at the bottom of my third ale and feeling fine. 

“I don’t think anyone should be owned.”

“Droids are things, not beings. Or am I misunderstanding you?”

“No, droids are beings. The fact that they are not made of flesh and bone isn’t relevant to that.”

I leaned close and tried to whisper, “You believe in droid rights? I would never have guessed it.”

“I met a droid once,” she confided, sliding closer. It felt conspiratorial, elbow to elbow in the booth. I gestured to the serving droid to bring us another pitcher, not wanting it to end. “Well, she was multiple droids, but also just one. That was what convinced me. The droid, Elthree, had split her consciousness into multiple bodies. Thereafter each consciousness evolved separately, even though they traveled together and experienced the same inputs, they were different. That’s not the stuff of AIs just obeying their programming. That’s the stuff of…”

“The Force.” I agreed.

“Exactly.” She took a long drag on her drink, pointed at me in a good natured, earnest, way. “I’m not saying all droids are independent sentient creatures, but by the hundred sufferings, not all flesh beings are either. They all want a say in what happens to them.”

“Mother help us. Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.” Another drink. She refilled our glasses. I was feeling warm and snuggly. Out of habit, I moved close enough for our thighs to touch then immediately, pulled back. Less than arms’ distance,   
but not too close. “Daynas,” she said, habitually.

“I’m…Dynaz?”

“No…Daynas, thanks.” She pronounced it more slowly.

“Daynas. Means Thank you.”

“Just thanks. To be more formal, you’d say “Daynas, oen’nuin”. Thank you, friend.”

“And please?”

“Tuhash.”

“Tuhash, oen’nuin, l’forret.”

She looked at me strangely, “You’re sorry? You speak Zabrak now?”

“I’ve been studying it, on my datapad. But didn’t have any audio. So I didn’t quite know how it sounded. I thought…we could talk?”

She just blinked. I shrugged, minimized it. “Languages are one of the things I like to study. If you don’t mind?”

“Shar meni’oen. That’s fine.” She raised her glass to me, and we both drained them.

“Anyway, I think you can still engage a droid, hire them for wages. But to purchase one and trap it on my ship without it’s foreknowledge and consent? I could not. Not after meeting Elthree.”

I nodded, understanding something I’d never even thought about.

“Why don’t you have a droid, Arsjami?”

It was my turn to be embarrassed. “Honestly. They scare me.”

Her face told me she didn’t believe me. 

“No really. I,” I stammered, “…I didn’t grow up with them, not real talking, useful, multi-functional ones. We couldn’t afford one on the farm. We had machines, you know reapers and combines and such, but none,” I gestured widely around the station, “like these.”

“That is…”

“Very poor, I know. I was there.” I sounded more defensive than I felt. “Then, when I went away to school, I didn’t have one. All the other students did, you know personal assistants and all of that. I applied to the school office as a…charity basically and got one. G4-75-B, GB for short. It was awful. Malfunctioned. Squawked in the middle of the night. Couldn’t take directions. Eventually it got so bad, it attacked me, broke my arm in two places. Was just a total mess. I returned it and never bothered again.”

“I can see why that would make you not bother.” She set her glass down, looked out over the crowd. 

“Can I ask you, how did you get into…” 

She raised her hand and pointed with a nod of her head. Looking casually around, I saw the handful of imperials enter the restaurant. She was suddenly sober and alert.

I stammered, immediately looking for an exit.

“We should go. Let me get the bill.” She gestured for the wait-droid. We slipped out before the imperials were able to shut down all the exits. From there, we went back to the Caiti, shaken but safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A soft quick chapter.  
> Working more Zabrak words in. This chapter came together after one of my beta readers mentioned her perception of Dakatar that was at complete odds to my mental picture. So I filled in some details and played with her "butch/femme" presentation some.
> 
> Let me know what you think with your comments and kudos!


	9. Of Marketplaces and Ul’Zabrak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arsjami and Dakatar have an encounter with Arsjami's Force Gift, for good and bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags for this chapter only: brief mention of torture/interrogation; Exploration of The Force; Hurt/Comfort; Sleepytime Tea!

The next day, I convinced her to go down to the open market with me. Or rather,

“You can’t go alone,” Dakatar’s tone was meant to impress upon me an understanding of my own foolishness. As if I didn’t know...

“Then come with me,” I offered. I opened my case to pick the cleanest outfit.

“You shouldn’t be going at all.” She had her arms crossed over her chest, legs squared.

“Sure sure, whatever. Come with me!”

I literally pouted until she laughed at me, her whole body relaxing with a sigh.

“Fine. Cover your face. And use the voice modulator.”

“Really? The voice modulator!”

“Yes really. We know there are Imps out there, we can’t have anyone here recognizing The Voice of the Rebellion!” she warned dramatically.

“I don’t sound like that.”

She raised her eyebrows at me quizzically.

I pouted for real that time. However, I did strap on the voice modulator. It covered my nose and mouth, made me sound like an overeager school girl with a breathing problem. With it, a head wrap and facial veil, all anyone could see of my face were my eyes and the stripe of brown skin above and below them. Looking at my eyebrows, I wondered if I could get them to arch like Dakatar’s did. I scrunched up my face, then decided it wasn’t worth any more effort. It was enough fun to put on all clean clothes — dark blue tunic with wide sleeves and a broad collar, trousers, with the matching veil -- this was the nicest set of clothing I’d packed. I put on a pair of dark blue gloves, to complete the look. I dropped down through the hatch. Dakatar actually stopped to look at me, her eyes traveling from my boots to my face, to meet my gaze. Even perhaps approvingly. I took the chance to return her look, shined boots, slim black pants. A large dark green overcoat with hood that hid her hands and puddled at the collar. Her angular face, lips parted as if to say something. I smiled around the voice modulator, knowing it would show in my eyes. She said nothing. We went.

The station’s informal market was sprawled among the docks and lower decks leading to the maintenance access. Using old shipping containers, perhaps even compartments from old ships, as their homes, the shops sold everything.

“What are you looking for?”

“Something that calls to me,” I offered, walking up and down the aisles until I found the folks who dealt in scavenged goods. “This is where the good stuff is,” I remarked. She rolled her eyes.

“Where you get robbed, more like.”

I stopped at one stall and then the next. At one that was mostly engine parts, I lingered because I knew Dakatar would want me to. Sure enough, she found something, gave me a guilty look when she made her purchase. 

“It is a part for a HK, could be useful,” she defended, stuffed it into her pack.

Towards the back, were the saddest stalls. Not even stalls really, blankets of people’s belongings spread on the ground. These were refugees, selling all they had. I lingered, wanting to give just a little something.   
Unfortunately, nothing caught my attention. I stood, waiting for Dakatar to make another purchase.

 _Here._

I turned to look in the direction of the voice. Three blankets down. Dakatar was looking at some more metal parts. I kept walking. 

_Here._   
No, not three blankets down, around the corner there, back up to the stalls, I looked back. Dakatar was talking to a Zabrak, I kept walking. I’d be right back. 

_Here._

Around the corner, out of sight. Into a shop. 

The shop was for household goods with stacks of matched tables and chairs up front.   
_Here._   
Further back plates, bowls, sets of flatware. It smelled of dust and despair, that musty flat scent of things left behind untended for a long time.   
_Here._   
Behind a pile of chairs, was a table strewn with odds and ends, unmatched leftovers.   
_Here._   
I floated my hand over the collection, waiting for the familiar vibration of a thing that wanted to be found.   
_Here._   
There it was, a two-pronged fork, metal, rusted brown. When my eyes lingered on it, it glowed strangely red in my vision. I laid a finger on it and reached out with my mind to hear what it had to say.   
Horror.   
_A hand, holding the fork, looking into a face, caressing that face, loving that face. Maiming that face. A gaping hole. An eye on the end of the fork, blood splashing on tiles like water from a cup._

I’m sure I cried out. Snapping my hand back, it felt greasy, stained, then frostbitten cold. I looked at my fingers but saw nothing. I turned, hurried towards the doorway. The proprietor appeared, from between two chairs just in front of me.

“Hello, did you find anything in the back you’re interested in?”

They were an ugnaught, with a tuft of hair and giant eyebrows.

“No, nothing. Thank you.” I stepped forward but they blocked my way. The shop was too narrow for me to get around.

“Really good thing back there, valuables.” They looked me in the eyes like they knew something. I could read no emotion from them, just a cold black space. That was as frightening as the fork had been.

“No nothing. I’m just leaving.” I pulled my hands into my sleeves, rubbing them together, trying to feel my finger again, still numbly cold.

“Hey, hey, what do you have there? Did you pull something up your sleeve?!” they decried loudly. I took a step forward, meaning to push past them, when a shadow came over the doorway.

“What’s that then?”

The speaker stepped into the shop. Station security.

I’m sure I swore.

“Shoplifter sir!” the ugnaught shopkeeper pointed at me. I looked at the security guard, shaking my head, frantically.

“No no no…”

“See, she’s covered her face and everything! Suspicious.” Even as the ugnaught accused me, they were unemotional, it was all an act. The guard reached towards me and another voice entered the space.

“Sharee fej gin! (literally: You are there!)”

My face snapped to look at Dakatar in the doorway. She reached past the guard to take me by the upper arm. 

“Gen hiso! Dou fej sharee gen tlesu meni? Shar’men devsta. (Get over here! What are you doing here? It is dangerous.)”

“What’s going on here?” the guard asked. Dakatar was taller than he and her presence gave him pause.

“Oh, is nothing,” she leaned into her accent, sounding hard and menacing. “My charge here. She was shopping. Gotten out of hands.” She shook me for emphasis as she scolded me: “Tze’keyn, jendeis mali’kep.   
(keep quiet, stupid child.)”

“She’s a shoplifter and I want her prosecuted!” yelled the shopkeeper. He seemed afraid enough of Dakatar to want to step back, even as he was bolstered by the presence of the guard.

“You need some help in there Bobo?” a second guard called from outside. Dakatar squeezed my arm so tightly I winced.

“We’re coming out Charle. All of us.” The guard herded me and Dakatar to the outside walkway, the shopkeep eagerly following.

Charle and Bobo put their heads together a minute. Then Charle turned to me.

“So, what’s the matter here?”

Dakatar interrupted. “I said: My charge got out of my sight. Into the wrong shop. Won’t happen again.”

“Why’s her face covered?” asked the shopkeep. “That’s awfully suspicious. She stole something. I saw her touching things and pulling her hands into her sleeves.”

“Ok, ok, calm down.” Charle forewarned the shopkeep, then us, “We’ll have to see her face.”

“That is not possible,” responded Dakatar with a cool finality. “She has just received facial markings for her wedding. She cannot be seen. Do you seek to dishonor her family? Or receive the wrath of her betrothed?” She leaned in on each word. Charle was visibly shook.

“Ok, fine. That’s fine. Local customs and all. But we’re going to have to see up her sleeves to make sure she didn't take anything.”

Dakatar looked at me as though to put the proper fear of proper parents into my bones. I pulled my gloved hands free from where I had them shoved up my sleeves, showed them to the guards. Bobo searched the fabric carefully, finding nothing.

Bobo and Charle looked at the shopkeep. “So, what do you say she stole?” 

The shopkeeper frowned, waved his hands at me as to shoo me away. “Nothing, just a cheapskate touching things she can’t afford.” He retreated to his shop, still flat and emotionless.

“Oen’dhia, officers.” Dakatar offered, giving them each a small nod. They returned the gesture.

“Stay safe, travelers.”

They went off on their rounds. “Hisai gen’ta.” Dakatar dragged me in the opposite direction, all the way back to the Caiti.

She didn’t let go of my arm until I was sitting at the table in the crew quarters. Deposited, she cursed in Zabrak for quite a few minutes. I sat, staring at my hand.

“What is wrong with you? What do you have to say?”

I looked up at her, back down “I’m trying to find feeling in my hand again.” I hadn’t even taken the voice modulator off, my words sounded strange and echoing in my head.

“What? Did I hurt you?”

“No, there was something in that shop. Something awful.”

Sucking her teeth, she dropped to her knees before me. She reached for my scarf, then stopped. “May I help you remove your scarf? Then I can look at your hand?”

I nodded. The entire situation building a panic in my chest. My hand. _Here._ I could still hear the distant call. She pulled free the veil and head wrap, then took my hands in hers, removing the gloves.

“Which ones are hurt?”  
I pointed. We both looked at my numb finger, but it didn’t look any different.

“Tell me what happened.”

“I heard, I heard what I was waiting for. For something to call to me. I followed the voice into that shop. There was a two pronged fork in the back, rusty. I put my finger on it and…Dakatar,” my voice hitched, and I looked at her, holding back a sob. “Dakatar, someone has done something awful with that thing. It is infused with such a violent evil.” I stopped, took a few breaths. “Then, when I took my hand back, my finger, where I had touched it, had gone numb.”

She muttered something I didn’t understand. Then spoke to me: “Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

I shook my head. “Not really. Yes to finding things that shouldn’t have been found. No, never this physical.”

She leaned back on to her haunches and really looked at me.

“This is your gift. You have to tell me what’s happening. The answer is in what you already know,” she said it with the conviction of a proverb. It was an obvious thing.

The first words that came to mind: “I’m hungry. Is there something warm to eat?” she inclined her head, fetched a bowl of porridge.

“Better?” Dakatar asked when she returned.

I nodded. “It is retreating now I think. I’ll say my prayers before bed. That should help too.”

“You could practice your forms too. If raising your Force is what you want to do…”

“Will you practice with me?”

“I will,” She agreed, without hesitation.

It was hard to find the poses again, to remember the sequence. At every mistake, I continued, following her lead. Having her there really helped, not just as a guide, but as a presence. On the last repetition, I could feel the energy flowing between us again, as it had before we’d fought. I could see the joy of it, feel it in my heart. My heart, beating in my chest, my blood pushing through my veins. When I bowed at the end, to myself, to her and her teachers, I felt genuinely better. I collapsed in a heap.

“Now that is better. Sometimes tired will take you places empty idleness will not.”

“I’m not sure I understand what that means.”

“It is a rough translation,” Dakatar quipped. “I’m sorry, if I was too hard on you in the shops.”

“No, I deserved that. I was careless to wander off. I wasn't thinking.”

“I called you a stupid child.”

“I know. I figured it was all for the guards.”

“Mostly.”

She smiled at me, looked at me from the corner of her eyes. “I deserve that,” I repeated.

“What do we do now?” she asked. I shrugged, not moving from the floor.

“Got one more day to kill here on the station. Guess I’ll stay here and hide.”

“We should do something about that…tool you found.”

“Do something?”

“Yes, we can’t leave it there to tempt others.”

“What?” I sat up and looked at her wide eyed. She hadn't moved. “I’m not going anywhere near that thing!”

“It is obviously infected with a dark energy. You had the will to control and resist it, but what of other people? What if someone like you finds it, but doesn’t have anyone to help them? What if a child buys it on a whim and then…”

“You don’t think…”

“Our stories are full of such cautionary tales. We cannot leave it there for anyone else to come into contact with.”

I looked down at my fingers. “I can’t keep it, Dakatar. I don't even want to be near it.”

“We destroy it. Drop it into the nearest sun’s gravity well before we jump out.”

I exhaled. “You’re not wrong.”

“I’m rarely wrong, Arsjami.”

I had to chuckle. “Is now the time for your arrogance, Dakatar?”

She grinned back at me.

“What shall we do?” she asked.

“We steal it,” I proposed, with a sudden feeling of drama. “We sneak into the market when it is closed and…”

She interrupted me. “Why can’t we just buy it?”

“What?”

“Yeah, it is in the back of a junk shop. Nothing in there seemed worth more than a few credits. We just buy it.”

I frowned. “There’s no way that shopkeep would let us back in.”

“Then we send in someone else.”

“If anyone else touches it, they’ll get…this!” I wiggled my finger at her.

A pause. Then it came to us both together.

“A droid.”

It was, after all, easy. She hired one of the repair droids to go to the market and buy all the forks on the back table. We told the droid our master was an artist of found objects. He had a collection of the things and was using them to make culinary art for collectors in the Core. Within 2 hours, the droid was back with a box of forks.

“Is it in there?” Dakatar asked me, looking into the box warily. We hadn’t even taken it inside.

“Yes. Definitely.” I could hear it’s insistent voice. I wondered if I would sleep as long as we had it. “Can we leave it outside the ship? Please?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a plan for that.”

She stored it in a compartment open to the outside, underneath the lav. It looked like a venting port for waste. It was really used for storing contraband, and dumping it if you go caught by the authorities. I sagged into the couch inside, trying to focus on anything else.

“So, the droids are fixing the ship now?” I asked, when she came up the hatch.

“Yes, we’ve got an exit appointment set for 20 hours from now.”

“What shall we do?” I asked, hopelessly.

“We never did catch that holovid.”

We went. Me wrapped up like a made-to-order bride, her playing the part of the assigned chaperone. They served food in the vid room, which was as good as our first meal out, though the vid itself was laughably bad. It was all good fun, outweighing the horror of earlier in the day. That shadow faded enough that on the way back, I stopped again in the market. 

_Here._

“No, we’re not doing this again,” Dakatar warned.

“There is actually something, just there. Please. Hiso su’ku shuree. (Come with me.)”

“Oh no, you’re showing off your Zabrak now to flatter me.”

I grinned. “Tuhash. (Please.)”

She sucked her teeth. “Meni’oen. Fik’. (Fine. Quickly.)”

I all but ran back into the market.   
_Here._   
There was a smaller, softer voice now. Probably covered by the other, more sinister one earlier in the day. Now I could hear it, and navigated to the front of a new shop. In a case at the front were weapons. Knives, daggers. The call came softly from within.   
_Here._

Dakatar looked into the case. The shopkeep, a Gungan at least her height came out. They exchanged nods.

“Volks. (Greetings.) Looking for something, Zabrak?”

Dakatar looked at me. Choosing to keep up the illusion of my piety, I said nothing. She took the lead. “Yes, my charge would like to look around inside? Is it private?”

“It is. Come in.” Inside was spacious and well lit. It was a collection of statuary. I know my eyes lit up as I started to look. “Ah, she’ll find something she likes. For you, vyshtal (warrior) I have a few weapons for sale, if you’d like to look.” The Gungan gestured to a long counter to one side. We both wandered up and down the shop, indulging in our particular fancies, coming to stop side-by-side before one case.

“That there, that knife.”

“Yes, it is a hakkle, from a Zabrak colony world. Not as nice as an Iridonian one, but wicked sharp.”

I tapped the case and looked at Dakatar. She got the hint. “And this, this…ceramic bowl?”

The shopkeep pulled both pieces out. “That is a ceremonial oil lamp. Don’t know what ceremony it is from. Only that it holds oil and will burn. Not recommended for use in a grass hut.” The Gungan joked with a smile.

We bought both. On the way to the Caiti, we picked up fruit and a jug of ale for the trip. I crawled into my bunk and tried to sleep. Whenever I would start to drift off, that sinister voice would come to me, with a flashed image of blood on tiles. It was chilling. I crawled up to the cockpit, where Dakatar was standing, looking through the glass at the droids finished up the repairs.

“What are you doing up?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at me.

“Looking to get as far away from the thing as possible,” I muttered, slumping into my seat.

“It keeps you up?”

“I can hear it. It wants to be held.”

“Have you tried meditating?”

“I didn’t ask for your advice, Force Master Dakatar,” I said bitterly.

She grunted, said nothing else.

“With this gift, Arsjami, how did you join the rebellion?” she turned, leaned her hips back on the panel. “You could have done any number of other things. Why this?”

I fingered the answer in my mind for a minute, then shrugged. “It just happened. I was at uni, but didn’t know what I would do after. I didn’t have the kind of family that could line up a junior professorship somewhere for me. So, in my last year, I was desperate about my future. I started ‘casting on the HoloNet. I was angry about the nepotism and favoritism and the Imperial thumb on all my chances. So that’s what I ‘cast about. I collected other people’s stories, their complaints and concerns, and I shared those too. Got a following, I suppose.”

“You don’t sound happy about that.”

I shifted in my seat, facing her more directly. “It didn’t go as planned, not that I had a plan. I got Imperial attention. Was picked up for…sedition I think? Treason? It doesn’t matter. I received my diploma on a Monday. Stood trial on a Wednesday. Was on an Imp prison transport on Friday.” I snapped my fingers.

“They don’t linger.”

“No. They don’t. Was a short sentence, two standard years. Meant to scare me, and silence the people who liked what I had to say. Inside, that’s where I met my first Rebel. A human who went by Cloos. I don’t think that was her real name. After a few months talking with her, being with her, I was convinced.”

“Being with?” I could see the judgment on her face. 

I made a vague hand gesture, waffling both hands up and down. “You said you didn’t want to know. I can fill you in, If you’re asking.”

“Oh. No. No.”

“When I got out, I got a job at a primary school. My previous agitation made going back to uni to teach impossible. I spent a while trying to disappear. Then Cloos contacted me, when she got out. Convinced me to get back into ‘casting. Safer this time, I would say benign things. She’d bury codes in my reporting. From there, once hostilities got too…hot, I went inside, as it were. Running with Rebels and actively reporting on Imperial atrocities. Came to be my career: Hide out on a planet for a few months, upload the content, move again. That’s me, Dawn Bird of the Rebellion.” I moved my hand as if spelling my call sign out in a holo.

She nodded. I think I’d almost impressed her.

“Do you know the codes?

“No. Most of what I report is sent to me by” I pointed up. “I don’t know what’s real news, what’s fake news, or what’s been manipulated to be a coded message. I’m a dead end, espionage wise.”

“Disposable.

“I try not to think of myself that way. It hurts my feelings. I prefer insulated.”

“Have they ever caught you?

I hesitated, shrugged. “Twice. Once I survived a round of interrogation. They figured they had the wrong girl and let me go. Second time, they weren’t making the same mistake. I was lucky there was a squad to break me out before the Imps could get to me.”

“You’ve survived interrogation?

I clenched my jaw and let my lips fake a smile. It didn’t seem the kind of thing one smiled about. “It was a…small one. It helped that I didn’t know anything. Couldn’t survive it again tho. I found corners of my mind to hide in, …no, couldn’t do it again.”

Now she was impressed. “You’re more of a vyshtal than you let on, Arsjami.”

I changed the subject, just bringing it up clouded my vision. “You? How’d you end up in the Rebellion?”

“I Was always in it. There is no love between we Zabrak and the Imps. Once I was good enough to fix and fly a ship, I was smuggling for my colony. Then for anyone who would pay.”

“Did you always fly solo?”

“No.” She shook her head, crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve been in a couple of crews, but they never lasted. Got enough work that I bought The Caiti. Once I had my own ship, I ran a couple of jobs for a Rebel contact, messenger service work really. Once they figured they could trust me, I’ve been in ever since. Whether they want me or not.”

“You ever been caught?

“No.” She pursed her lips. “I’ve had Close calls, out run a few patrols. I’ve never been close enough to the action to be a wanted person.”

“It ain’t all it is said to be, being a wanted person.”

“Maybe. But having your work matter, that is what it is said to be.”

“You don’t think your work matters?”

She considered, seeming to throw out one answer after another. “Sure, I’m sure it matters. If I wasn't doing it, they’d find some other young recruit to do it.”

“And you think they would have given me, this trip, to some other young recruit?”

“That depends on how much you matter, I suppose,” Dakatar responded with a considering look.

“I suppose it does. And I don’t know. A thought: maybe none of us know how much we matter, not really. Not until…” 

“They put us on the pyre,” she finished my thought.

“That.”

“Spoken like a true Zabrak.” She pushed away from the console, taking a last look out of the ship. There were no sounds outside, the droids were done and gone.

I sat alone in the cockpit, long enough for the lights to switch to night mode. I could still hear the fork calling me, but it was distant. I thought perhaps Dakatar had gone to sleep until she came back up the stairs, handed me a mug of something warm.

“What’s this?”

“A little something. A…drink for nuin. Friends,” she said, sitting with her back to the console, facing me. I brought the mug to my nose.

“Don't smell it. It won’t do anything for you, but believe, it smells delicious to me.”

In the dim light her eyes were even more striking, catching every glint and flash. I raised my glass to her and she mirrored me, then I drank. Mother below, it was thick and juicy, fruity not sweet. Spicy like wood, and astringent like herb and… Definitely alcoholic. If I hadn’t been seated, it would have knocked me down. I swallowed, felt the warmth move down my throat to my belly like a snake.

“Did those things really happen to you, what you said on Geya? About being left behind?”

She looked down into her glass, nodding. “I took a blaster shot to the leg, for a courier. He kept running and never looked back. Had a number of folks I’ve done jobs for pretend they didn't know me later.” She   
made a face, as if it didn’t matter.

“Hm. I don’t know about them. But from what you’ve gotten me out of in the last month, hell, in the last 24 hours, if I saw you after this, in some station somewhere, I’d run up and hug you. With permission, of course.”

“We get out of this and get you back to the HoloNet, and you can have that hug.” She took a long drink. I sipped mine, feeling the brew do its work on my legs already. I wasn’t sure I could stand up.

“You really think people don’t like you?”

“I know they don’t like me, Arsjami. I’m not a likable sort.”

“I like you.”

She chuckled, said nothing further.

“I’m just saying that there are probably those out there who do like you. You just haven’t noticed. For whatever reason.”

“Or because I didn’t care.

“You do. You care a lot.”

She stared at me and I returned the look unflinching. She pursed her lips again, looked down into her empty glass. She rose, went back down stairs, came back with a bottle. She offered me more, I waved her off.   
She filled her glass.

“You have a lot of friends,” she said. I let my head fall back onto the seat, had stopped thinking about anything beyond how the drink made me feel, heavy and sweet, like it tasted.

“I know a lot of people. Have a number of acquaintances. My father used to say to always remember the difference between those you know and friends. Took me a long time to understand him, but I do now.”

“What’s the difference then? I don’t think I have either.”

“A friend works around what’s wrong with you. Maybe helps you fix it. But they know it is there and love you anyway. I think Captain Jarcu is your friend, probably.”

She glared at me, eyebrows raised, doubt written into every line of her face.

“No, for real.” I finished my glass. She caught it before it slipped out of my hand.

“Have you drugged me, Dakatar?”

“No. I’ve helped you sleep.” She produced a blanket out of nowhere. Had she brought it with her the last time she went to the kitchen? When was that? Did that happen? She tucked it around my legs, under my chin.

“You’d best be careful,” I slurred.

“Or else?” she leaned close, her cheek close enough that I could have turned my head and kissed her. She inhaled deeply. I did too, smelling the liquor and something I couldn’t name. Thinking of what it was, whatever witty thing I was going to say slipped out of my mind. I dropped into a dark and dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A day late on this post, but here we are!  
> Chapters are getting longer and hopefully more...impactful. Effective. Fun.  
> I hope the "slo burn feel" is happening for you all. It is for me.
> 
> Thanks always for reading and leaving kudos.


	10. Something Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally safe and able, our couple heads for the next stop. Meet the planet Obas, the mining town of Pais.

I woke up with a start as Dakatar pulled us out of the station. Tucked under the blanket, I’d slept better than expected, waking groggy but present. 

She banked out of the dock, turning the Caiti to the side.

“Is something wrong?” I dared ask, my concern for getting rid of our unwanted cargo bigger than any I had about her feelings.

“No. Just fun to do that,” she responded, banking to the other side before settling into a flatten heading. I imagined her smiling, enjoying flight after a few days with her feet on, well, not the ground but…

As planned, she directed The Caiti towards the star of the system, putting it between us and the station. Just at the edge of the gravity, when the ship started to shudder and creak, she dumped the box. Curving around to our exit coordinates, I could see it --   
the flatware and the weapon — turning slowly in our wake. 

_here._

Then it was caught and pulled down into the bright spot I couldn’t look directly at. The call lessened, ebbed, disappeared entirely. It was like someone had released my heart from a vice. As she pulled the hyperspace lever, I dragged myself down to my bunk and fell back asleep. 

We took a chance and used the main hyperspace route for some of our trip, cutting the travel time to only 5 days. There were no imps out this way and we’d lost a lot of time limping to the station, so it was a risk worth taking. It was a fine five days, filled with conversation and practice. When we dropped into orbit around Obas, I felt like we were close and becoming closer.  
***

Obas was a resource rich, if challenging planet. Full of trees and wildlife, deep ravines and snowy mountains. As we orbited down to the town of Pais, we overflew them all.

“There are animals down there?” Dakatar asked me as we banked and looked for somewhere to land.

“Forest full of them, as I recall. Assuming the mines haven’t poisoned everything and run them off.”

“I may get a decent meal tonight after all.”

The only spaceport in town was for mining rigs only, so without clearance, we edged around the settlement, selecting a large clearing a few clicks out to the Caiti her down. It was late afternoon when we opened the hatch and looked around. The air was crisp and chill, the planet’s winter either just coming or just receding. The sun was behind the crest of the mountains to our west, so the clearing was in shadow, even though official nightfall wasn’t for a few more hours.

“It is about a thirty minute walk to town. Let’s…” Dakatar started. I interrupted her:

“I wouldn’t recommend it at this hour, no telling what’s in these woods. And there’s plenty of telling what’s in a mining town after dark.”

“Morning then,” she relented.

“Definitely. We’ll find out if any of my old friends are still around. They can tell us the state of the trails up to the hermitage.”

She looked out into the trees. “I’m hungry. Can you make a fire?”

I frowned. “With wood? It has been a while.”

“Remember. I’m off to get dinner.”

She retrieved some things from the Caiti, then lopped off into the trees, leaving me to my own devices. Which involved collecting wood and trying to keep my hands warm. It got fully dark, and frigidly cold, and Dakatar had not returned. Every few minutes, I checked the tree line with my lantern. Threw another bit of wood on the fire. Eventually, she showed herself in my beam of light, holding two dead animals in her grip. When she was in the light of the fire, she held them high.

“What is that?”

“Don’t know what they’re called here, but where I’m from, they’re meat.”

“Is that, blood on your chin?” I asked, vaguely disgusted, vaguely fascinated.

“You have to eat the heart right away, that’s when it is best.”

“Mother above,” I said softly, and turned away.

She roasted the animals over the fire, which produced a strangely pleasant, if not appetizing, odor.

“Have you never eaten meat?:

“I have,” I was looking out into the night. “It just isn’t my preference.”

“Hm. I ask that you try it.”

“Why?” I looked back at her. She’d held half the animal in her hand, broken open, steaming and moist. Moving around to kneel in front of me, she pinched off a piece between two fingers.

“Because I’ve asked you to. Unless truly, it is against your ability.”

“What are you not saying, Dakatar?”

“A lot. And I will go on not saying it for now.” She offered again. I didn’t have a good reason to say no. And it clearly meant something to her, something she couldn’t or wouldn’t say more about. I took a deep breath. By degrees, I leaned forward and let her place the bite in my mouth. Carefully, with only the slightest touch to my lips. It was melty, peppery, definitely meat.

As I chewed, she bit hungrily into the other half of the animal. At the crunch of bone, I flinched. However, she’d asked so I carried on with my taste.

“It is pretty good,” I admitted.

“Thank you. For trying it.”

“Really, why? Why have you asked me to?”

“It would be rude of me to go on a hunt and not share the kill. Is that enough reason?”

"If it means something to you, I'd like to know what."

She met my eyes, hers brightly sharp in the fire light. "You've asked much of me. I asked this of you. That is what it means to me."

I nodded, let our shared gaze get almost uncomfortable before I looked away with a shrug to cover the warm feeling I had on the back of my neck. "That's what I wanted to know," I dropped my eyes.

The silence eased back to comfort as we ate then changed the subject.

“Tell me about this place? About Pais?” she asked.

“The mine is down in that ravine to our west. The town itself is between us and the ravine. Pais was a company mine when I worked here. The school was funded by the corporation so that people would have somewhere to leave their kids while in the mine. I’d spend my weekends hiking the nearby mountains. That’s when I found the hermitage. The Corporation pulled out and took my job with it. I couldn’t afford to ship the box, hell, didn’t have a way to get the damn thing down from the mountaintop, so I left it there.”

“And this hermitage?”

“An old retreat for religious types throughout the sector, before the mine went it. Was a place where you could come and meditate on the Force, surrounded by all the woods and life within them, was probably a pretty profound experience. When the corp put the mine in, all of that stopped. So the hermitage has been abandoned for years and years.”

“What’s it made of?”

“Some old caves, widened out and made livable. Used to be a few actual buildings, they mostly had fallen over last time I was here. Don't expect any of them to have survived.”

“Any chance anyone else has been up there?”

“Always a chance. That’s why we have to hope I still know someone in town who can clue us in. Won’t pay to go up their unawares.”  
***

We set off first thing in the cold morning on the scooter-bike, our breath warm clouds of steam in front of our faces. Just as we came out of the woods into a clear cut plain, we heard the shift bell in the ravine beyond. By the time we pulled into town the first shift had started underground. There were no managers to be seen. The only thing open on the main street was a counting room with no one in line, the accountant leaned against the doorway of his wooden hut. 

“Looking for a shift in the mines? Manager’s off till after lunch bell,” he proclaimed, pointing towards the mine.

“No, looking for the cantina. Dig Dag Dug’s still there?” I called back, pointing in the other direction, towards the bar.

“Sure is,” he changed his pointing arm to indicate the muddy end of the dirt street.

“Dag still in charge?”

The accountant nodded. I waved to him and we continued on.

We’d have found the bar ourselves, there was a passed out drunk leaned up against the side of the building. Naked. Written across his chest “SlowPay”. They’d stripped his belongings to pay his tab. I paused outside and centered myself while Dakatar looked around a bit. The familiar light of the Force was there, strong and bright from all sides. The life of the planet lit up around me. I pulled a feeling into my mind, open and trusting, and held it. I expected that would get Dag to tell me anything I wanted to know.  
Inside the cloth-covered doorway, the bar was mostly empty. A Weequay waitperson Perked up when she saw Dakatar, but wilted back to the corner when we paid her no mind. There was a bartender, another Weequay in dirt brown overalls with a surprisingly clean white apron.

“Bright risings, Dag,” I greeted him with the biggest smile I could find. I waved, approached the bar, knocked twice with my fist on the wood.

“Morning,” he responded, turning to pull two pints without question. “You a returner? You look familiar.” I pushed out the emotion I’d prepared for him. His mind took it in a heartbeat.

“Sure am. I haven’t been back since the Corporation left.” I didn’t fill in the details he was looking for. He shrugged it off when I put the two credits on the bar.

“Ah yeah. Lot’s changed.”

“Has it?” I leaned closer, this was why I was here. Dakatar stood with her back to the bar, listening, sipping the beer with a wince at the quality.

“Yeah, open mine. We still have shifts, there’s no organized teams though. You check in with the manager and go for broke. Weigh up daily with the counter-man.”

“Does the Corp still do pick ups?”

“Nah, imps come by for it.”

“Weekly?”

Dag’s eyes narrowed. I pushed the feeling again and his face eased, as if I’d shot him full of a sedative. “Just wondering,” I covered my curiosity with a joke: “Do I look Like I’m gonna knock over the place?”

He looked warily at Dakatar, then chuckled. I pressed. “They been by recently?”

“It has been a few days. They’re due tomorrow.” He responded thoughtfully. “Don’t no one have say over those dry assholes.”

“True.” I sipped the beer. It was awful. I had to get out of there before I was forced to order another.

“Neme Vale still up the mountain?

“Old Vale? Yeah, she’s there. White as snow and just as cold. She’s still there.”

“Good to know,” I said.

“That’s who you are! That teacher lady who used to sniff around Val. Well more than sniff…” he winked and chuckled again. “Ari? Right?”

“Right, that’s me. Ari.” I let him be wrong.

“Ah, she’ll be happy to see you. She doesn’t get much fresh meat up there these days. The fellas down here don’t have the stamina for Old Vale.”

I took another sip, regretted it. “Well, here’s hoping I still do. Thank you much, Dag.”

“Welcome to you. Come back after shift, the place really livens up. You can get a decent game going,” he offered. We waved, left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little slow, this one is, but it is leading to bigger things. I almost feel bad for this one, but they get longer and more intense from here. Promise.

**Author's Note:**

> More notes!  
> The story is complete. I'll update weekly, so the slow burn has time to...not fester...one of those words...burn.  
> All my thanks to the owners of the Star Wars setting and my beta readers (you know who you are!) -- the first for giving me a playground, the second for helping me build this sandcastle.


End file.
